A national study has revealed UF as one of 76 universities with more than $1 billion in endowment assets, leading some U.S. senators to clamor for the institutions to set more money aside for financial aid.
UF's endowment assets in 2007 earned UF the No. 61 slot out of 785 schools in the study, which was conducted by the National Association of College and University Business Officers.
Endowments are donations that are invested in the stock market. The investment returns are used to support scholarships and professorships at a university.
UF's endowment funds during the 2007 fiscal year were more than $1.2 billion, a 22.4 percent increase from the 2006 endowment funds, which were more than $996 million, according to the study.
Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton and the University of Texas system, each with 2007 endowment funds of more than $15 billion, lead the study's list.
UF's increased endowment funds have gained attention from leaders of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, Sens. Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley, who sent a letter Thursday to 136 U.S. colleges with endowments of million and more.
Daniel Virkstis, an aide to Baucus, wrote in an e-mail that the committee expects the universities to share the information with Congress for potential policies that might govern future endowments.
"Endowments have received high rates of return, and we want to make sure universities are doing what they can to keep costs down and ensure students are able to afford college," Virkstis wrote.
Leslie Bram, vice president of the UF Foundation, the organization that oversees donations to UF, said the most recent figures are good news, and the foundation intends to answer the senators' inquiries in 30 days or less, as requested in the letter.
Bram said UF's endowment policy is unique to other states' programs, because it grows with investment earnings and state-matching funds. Not all states match donations to universities, she said.
"We've leap-frogged up that endowment list over the last 20 years," she said.
Bram said because universities that top the list have bigger payouts, the senators think those universities have extra money available for financial aid.
But that's not always the case.
UF's endowment fund is 100 percent donor-restricted, she said, meaning the money UF receives is directed to the scholarships, lectureships, professorships or other UF programs the donors chose to support.
"None of this will free up as unrestricted money," she said.
Twenty-six percent of UF's endowment fund is designated for student financial aid, she said. And while there will be an increase in student aid, there will also be an increase for everything that the endowment supports.
"A scholarship 20 years ago doesn't cost what a scholarship today costs," she said.
Bram said affordability of college for middle-class families in particular, which is the basis of the senators' inquiry, is not a huge issue at UF with the availability of Bright Futures scholarships.
She added that UF's Florida Opportunity Scholars program, which began in summer 2006, offers free tuition to first-generation college students. There are currently 771 Florida Opportunity Scholars at UF, she said.
Because the study measures endowment growth over one fiscal year, the findings do not reflect recent downturns in the stock market, she added.
