If you’re lucky, you’re setting aside money for retirement—money that probably grew last year as the stock market perked up. Although the growth of university endowments depends on far more than market performance—gifts and withdrawals, for example, complicate the picture—the overall trend in the Ivy League for fiscal year 2003 is also up, as can be seen in these numbers from the annual survey conducted by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (and reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education). On average, endowments around the country rose by 3 percent:

School/Endowment (in billions)/% Change

Harvard/$18.9/up 9.8

Yale/11.0/up 4.9

Princeton/8.7/up 4.9

Columbia/4.4/up 2.6

Penn/3.5/up 4.5

Cornell/2.9/no change

Dartmouth/2.1/down 3.0

Brown/1.5/up 3.5