Facing a Financial Squeeze: What Harvard’s Response Can Teach the Rest of Us

How can we apply the same emergency measures that Harvard and other universities are using to navigate a financial crisis? Also, how universities invest their endowments and what their performance has been.

Topics covered include:

• What has led to the financial crisis at Harvard
• What actions has the university taken
• How do endowments invest and spend their funds
• How endowments maintain intergenerational equity
• How we can apply the principles universities use in our own investing

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Show Notes

Letter Sent to Harvard 2025-04-11—Harvard

Harvard Response 2025-04-14—Harvard

Trump Administration Will Freeze $2 Billion After Harvard Refuses Demands by Vimal Patel—The New York Times

Should Harvard Be Tax Exempt? by The Editorial Board—The Wall Street Journal

Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Reforms Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education—The White House

At Grim Town Hall, Harvard Medical School Leaders Tell Staff to Expect Layoffs and Far-Reaching Cuts by Avani B. Rai and Saketh Sundar—The Harvard Crimson

Can Harvard Use Its Endowment To Make Up For Federal Cuts? It’s Possible, but Not That Simple. by Avani B. Rai and Saketh Sundar—The Harvard Crimson

Yale Weighs $850 Million Bond Sale Amid Trump’s Higher Education Attack by Elizabeth Rembert and Amanda Albright—Bloomberg

Yale seeks to sell billions in private equity investments as political pressures from Trump mount by Liese Klein—CT Insider

2024 NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments—NACUBO

Endowments Face Liquidity Crunch Amid Market Pullback, Funding Cuts by Matt Toledo—Chief Investment Officer

Big investors borrow against private equity holdings amid cash crunch by Amelia Pollard and Antoine Gara—The Financial Times

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