Despite liquidity issues, taxation concerns and federal funding cuts, the median university endowment returned 11.2% in fiscal 2025, according to a report from NEPC, with the highest performers exceeding 15%. The fiscal year ran through June 30, 2025, for most institutions.
The highest-performing endowments tended to have higher allocations to public equities, benefiting from the third year of a tech and artificial intelligence-fueled rally—especially in large-cap tech stocks.
The endowment of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, managed by the Wisconsin Investment Management Co., returned 16.2% last fiscal year, the highest of all mega endowments, which NEPC categorizes as those with at least $1.8 billion in assets. The endowment invested 55% of its assets in public equity, with another 31% in alternative investments, 12% in real assets, and 3% in cash and fixed income.
“WISIMCO’s investment fund benefited from equity market gains generally and effective stock selection,” wrote Colin Hatton, a principal on the endowments and foundations team at NEPC, in its report. “In the endowment’s recent annual financial report, Michelle Stohler, the WISIMCO CIO, noted that strong stock selection within their public equity allocation in particular, as well as in the private markets, did most to enhance results.”
WIMCO was followed by the University of Michigan (15.5% return), Bowdoin College (15.3%) and the Virginia Commonwealth University Investment Management Co. (14.9%).
June 30, 2025 Mega Endowment Performance
| Rank | Institution | Return (%) | Asset ($B) |
| 1 | University of Wisconsin-Madison | 16.2% | $4.9B |
| 2 | University of Michigan | 15.5% | $21.2B |
| 3 | Bowdoin College | 15.3% | $2.9B |
| 4 | Virginia Commonwealth University Investment Management Co. | 14.9% | $2.0B |
| 5 | Boston University | 14.8% | $4.0B |
| 6 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 14.8% | $27.4B |
| 7 | Washington University in St. Louis | 14.7% | $14.5B |
| 8 | Amherst College | 14.5% | $4.8B |
| 9 | Stanford Management Co. | 14.3% | $47.7B |
| 10 | George Washington University*** | 14.1% | $2.8B |
***As of 8/31/2025
Source: NEPC, Publicly Available Endowment Data
Smaller and midsize endowments generally have higher allocations to public equity markets than their larger peers. According to data from the National Association of College and University Business Officers, endowments with between $100 million and $250 million in assets averaged 51% exposure to public equities at the start of fiscal 2025, compared with 37% for endowments with between $1 billion and $5 billion in assets, and 24% for endowments with at least $5 billion.
NEPC’s Hatton wrote that while large equity allocations benefited smaller endowments, investment managers’ returns were dispersed broadly.
“This suggests that active management was a meaningful factor in returns for the top performing funds,” Hatton wrote in the report. “We believe that manager selection will continue to be a driver for the strongest performing endowments going forward. This is particularly true within private markets, where the difference between top and bottom quartile performers is much broader than in public markets.”
Exposure to artificial intelligence through venture capital, as well as investment in digital assets, also drove top-quartile endowment returns, according to a November 2025 report from Markov Processes International.
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Tags: Endowments, NEPC