<p>Brown University’s endowment earned a 12.6-percent return for fiscal year 2013. The long-term pool, which includes the endowment and other University funds, rose to a market value of $2.86 billion as of June 30, 2013. The endowment provides critically important funding for undergraduate financial aid, graduate fellowships, named professorships, library acquisitions, varsity athletics, and all academic programs, institutes, and centers.</p>

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Brown University’s endowment earned a 12.6-percent return for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2013. The long-term pool, which includes the endowment and other University funds, closed with a market value of $2.86 billion, according to an announcement this afternoon at the October Faculty Meeting. This compares to an average return of 11.6 percent for college and university endowments as currently reported by Cambridge Associates, a firm that tracks endowment performance nationwide.

“The endowment is a critical part of Brown’s operating budget, providing essential funding for need-blind admission, endowed professorships, and all of our academic programs, institutes, and centers,” Brown President Christina Paxson said. “Income from the endowment contributed nearly 16 percent of the University’s operating budget for the 2013 fiscal year — approximately $16,000 per student.”

Forty-four percent of current Brown undergraduates receive financial aid directly from the University, for which Brown budgeted $90.1 million in the 2013 fiscal year. The endowment also supports graduate student fellowships, library acquisitions, the Division of Biology and Medicine, all varsity sports, and building maintenance.

The Brown endowment is constructed with a long-term time horizon and a dual goal both to preserve capital and to provide returns that will ensure future purchasing power. The Brown endowment is diversified across asset classes including fixed income, equities, real assets, private equity, and absolute return strategies. Investments are made through external managers, market indices, or on a direct basis.

The three-, five-, and 10-year annualized returns for the endowment as of June 30, 2013, are 10.5 percent, 2.7 percent and 8.3 percent, respectively.

The long-term pool is managed by the professional staff of the Brown University Investment Office in concert with members of the Brown University Investment Committee, a committee of the Brown University Corporation, the University’s governing body.