MIT Announces Endowment Performance, Returns 8.9% in Fiscal 2024

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Investment Management Co., the entity which manages the endowment of the university, announced Friday that its unitized pool, including the endowment and other MIT funds, returned 8.9% in the 2024 fiscal year, which ended June 30. The gain follows two consecutive years with negative returns.

Assets managed by MITIMCo rose to $24.6 billion in fiscal 2024, a gain of $1.059 billion from fiscal 2023. Philanthropic contributions to the university in fiscal 2024 were $598.7 million, according to the MIT treasurer’s report.

After distributions to support operations for the current fiscal year, the market value of the assets of the endowment rose by 4.8%. Over the past 10-year period, the fund has returned 10.5%, annualized.

Last fiscal year, MITIMCo returned negative 2.9%. This fiscal year, MIT posted its first investment gain since fiscal 2021, when the endowment returned 49%. The return for fiscal 2022 was negative 5.3%.

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Peer institutions have also reported investment returns stronger than last fiscal year. This fiscal year, Stanford University reported an 8.4% return, up from 4.4% the previous year. Brown University achieved an 11.3% return after returning 2.7% last year.

Endowment performance in the fiscal year has been driven by equities, specifically the Magnificent Seven group of technology-focused mega-cap companies. While most elite endowments have larger allocations to the private markets, these assets are expected to underperform a 70/30 portfolio for the second year in a row, according to Markov Processes International.

“We don’t expect any elite school following the alternatives-heavy ‘Yale model’ to beat the robust 14.20% return of a global 70/30 portfolio for the second consecutive year,” Markov analysts wrote in a report. “Simpler, more vanilla endowment portfolios allocated primarily to stocks and bonds, found at smaller, less-resourced schools, could again prove hard to beat. Those that do will likely have overweighted domestic stocks, particularly technology.”

According to its report, MPI expects most Ivy League-level endowments (MPI categorizes these endowments as the eight Ivy League universities, plus Stanford and MIT) to achieve average returns between 9% and 10.5%. Columbia University achieved an 11.5% return, slightly ahead of Brown’s 11.3%.