The Massachusetts Institute of Technology saw an 11.1 percent return on its endowment for the fiscal year that ended June 30, the school announced Friday. MIT’s endowment now totals $11 billion, including pledges.
Yale and its peer schools in the Ivy League have yet to release their most recent endowment figures, which are usually reported in late September and October. Still, Yale administrators interviewed said the figure this year will likely be higher than last year’s 4.7 percent return, which did not provide the University with enough endowment income to fully offset the year’s spending. As a result, the size of the endowment dropped from $19.4 billion to $19.3 billion that year.
Provost Benjamin Polak told the News that Yale’s target endowment return is above 7 percent. A return of that size allows the University to keep the size of the endowment constant while spending 5 percent of it each year and accounting for inflation, he said.
In fiscal 2012, MIT’s endowment outperformed all eight Ivy League endowments. Dartmouth led the Ivy League with a 5.8 percent return, and Yale came next with 4.7 percent.
Yale’s endowment was valued at $19.3 billion as of June 30, 2012 — second only to Harvard’s $30.7 billion.