Harvard University has the largest endowment of any U.S. higher education institution.
The 2017 NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments says that for fiscal 2017, Harvard's endowment was valued at a little more than $36 billion—more than $8.8 billion larger than the endowment at Yale University.
Data from 809 U.S. colleges and universities for the NACUBO-Commonfund Study found that endowments returned an average of 12.2 percent for the fiscal 2017 (July 1, 2016 – June 30, 2017) compared with a decline averaging 1.9 percent for the 2016 fiscal year.
Here are the 10 higher-education institutions that had the largest endowments in fiscal 2016.