College Investments.

It is of special interest to know in what forms the property of our colleges, amounting to a hundred million of dollars, is invested. In presenting the facts I make use of reports sent to me from between one hundred and two hundred of the representative colleges, and also of reports of presidents and treasurers of these colleges. From these reports I infer that at last four-fifths of all the productive funds of the colleges are invested in bonds and mortgages. Few colleges, and a few only, have a part of their endowments in stocks of any sort. A few of them also, notably Columbia and Harvard, have invested in real estate. The facts as to certain representative colleges are illustrative: Cornell University has about $4,000,000 in bonds and about $2,000,000 in mortgages; Wabash has property of $362,000, of which $18,000 are in buildings, $21,000 in bonds and $323,000 in mortgages; the University of California has somewhat more than $2,000,000, equally divided between bonds and mortgages; Wesleyan University has $1,125,000, of which $81,000 are in real estate, $260,000 in bonds, $77,000 in stocks, $686,000 in mortgages; of the $3,000,000 possessed by Northwestern University, $150,000 are represented in buildings, bonds and mortgages, and the balance is embodied in lands and leases; the property of the University of Pennsylvania, more than $2,500,000, is divided into $357,000 in buildings, $514,000 in bonds, $127,000 in stocks, $429,000 in mortgages, and the remaining million is, as the treasurer describes, "in other values."

Harvard's immense property is changed in the forms of its investments more frequently than the property of many colleges; but of its eight or more millions, railroad bonds and real estate represent the large share, the amount of bonds exceeding the value of real estate. Colleges have few United States and few state and municipal bonds; but they do own large amounts of the best railroad bonds and of the bonds of waterworks companies, somewhat also of the bonds of street railways and also small amounts of the bonds of the counties of western states. As my eye runs down the list of securities of Cornell University I find a record of county bonds in several western states, as well as railroad bonds; but county bonds seem to predominate. Turning to a college of quite a different position and history, Washington and Lee, in Virginia, I find that, out of $600,000, $234,000 are invested in securities of the state of Virginia; that town and county bonds are represented by a few thousand dollars; and that railroads in the south represent the larger part of the balance. A college of a different environment and condition is Rochester University, New York. Of its $1,200,000, $335,000 are railroad bonds. [President Charles F. Thwing in June Forum.