Results tagged “harvarduniversity”

Shanghai Jiaotong University (SJTU) has released its fifth annual Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) which saw American universities take eight of the top ten spots. Harvard University emerged right on top, followed by Stanford University and University of California-Berkeley. Britain's Oxford and Cambridge -- the only two non-American universities to make it to the top ten -- secured the fourth and tenth positions respectively. The top university in Asia was the University of Tokyo, edging in at the twentieth spot.

Many American private universities have huge endowments, which are something like a trust fund, or more colloquially a "nest egg," sometimes worth billions of dollars that the universities use for whatever purposes they see fit. The size of the endowment (stop snickering now) is in no small way related to the reputation of the university. For example, Harvard University's is worth a whopping $22.6 billion (second only to the Gates foundation in net worth among non-profits). Of course, you don't get this kind of money by letting it sit in the bank -- you use all the investment tools and expertise at your disposal to make more money.