Dickinson College’s assistant treasurer says the school’s endowment reflects the college’s strong financial position and ability to attract quality students.

According to the school’s website, Dickinson has an endowment valued at $415 million as of Feb. 28.

Assistant Treasurer Keith Gillespie says that according to an association that monitors at least 750 college endowments, “we did better than 91 percent of the schools for one year and over the past 10 years we’ve done better than 94 percent of the schools.” Gillespie quoted former Dickinson President Dr. William Durden as saying, “We are punching above our weight.”

Gillespie noted that Dickinson’s endowment was higher than comparable schools such as Gettysburg and Franklin & Marshall. “We have our peers like F&M and Gettysburg but we also have aspirant schools, schools we aspire to be, such as Swarthmore due to their funding,” Gillespie says.

According to Swarthmore’s website, as of June 30, 2012, the endowment’s market value was $1.5 billion. Gillespie says, “You’re going to get an excellent education at Dickinson…but if we had Swarthmore’s resources you can get an ever more excellent education if that’s possible. We would like to have those resources but it could take some time to get there.”

So where does all the money come from? According to Gillespie it’s from gifts and investments. “People give it to us….People have given us money to provide perpetual support for Dickinson. Many of the donors are Dickinson alums but not all. One of our biggest donations came from a Baptist Church.”

The gifts though almost always can’t be used for anything. There’s a contract signed by the college and the gift giver saying that the money will be used for the donor’s purpose. It can be for scholarships, faculty positions, athletics, or a multitude of other things says, Gillespie.

Gillespie made it very clear that tuition money is not a part of the endowment. “It’s the income from the endowment that supplements and adds to the schools tuition,” Gillespie says.

The majority of the endowment funds, $342 million, are invested by the college with Investure, LLC, while the balance is mostly held in trust by others. Investure manages pooled assets of approximately $10 billion on behalf of Dickinson and other clients. Gillespie says that having the endowment in a pool allows, “Investure to do more things with the money.”

Dickinson almost never spends the principle of the money from the endowment, rather the money spent is from the interest Investure generates through investments says Gillespie. Gillespie noted that over that past ten years we’ve made 8.9 percent which is “very good because it includes the recession.”

Dickinson cannot legally dive into the endowment and start spending irresponsibly. Since Dickinson is legally considered a “public charity of Pennsylvania,” the money has to be used for charitable purposes in order to stay non-taxable, says Gillespie.

The only time the school could dive into the endowment is if it was absolutely necessary. Gillespie says, “If there was a tragedy such as a tornado that came through we could go to the court and partition to use part of the endowment, other then that we are supposed to be responsible stewards of the endowment and spending it for the purpose that we said we would be.”

The entire Dickinson community benefits from the endowment. The colleges’ website indicates that annual spending from the endowment supports 11 percent of the Dickinson operating budget and provides funding for other restricted funds as designated by donors.

For more information on the school’s endowment visit http://www.dickinson.edu/info/20052/
sustainability/2326/endowment.