The reasons most commonly cited for the seemingly inexorable slide toward the financial abyss are the relentless competition for high position in college rankings such as those invented by U.S. News & World Report; competition from taxpayer-subsidized public universities; and the inclination of even relatively affluent parents to bargain for more financial aid. Most at…

Our data suggest that colleges with proportionally more endowment enjoy stronger pricing power and greater capacity to bridge the widening gap between operating revenues and expenditures. At the same time, the abrupt end to the sustained 1990s bull market increases the prospect that volatility in investment returns may put endowment support of operations at greater…