Investment Revenue Leads Tuition and Gifts, Treasurer's Report Shows

Over 300 pages of itemized accounts appear in the official Treasurer's report for 1934-35, Which was published last week. Investment income, as has been the case since about 1800, heads the list of receipts with a total of $4,700,000 out of the total $12,200,000 income.

Some flgures from 1831 will show how the endowment has grown in the last century. In that year it yielded $21,000 of the $148,800 revenue. The endowment that year totalled $509,000 after deducting "doubtful and desperate debts" to the extent of $149,000. Notes and mortgages accounted for $308,000 Real estate valued at $75,000 brought $4,300. Speculation had not yet become a popular form of investment, Stock in five Boston banks and in several bridges over the Charles totalled only $15,000, yielded $890 a year.

Last year the endowment reached $129,000,000 and brought $4,709,000. Stocks and bonds dominated the scene, being valued at $110,000,000 and yielding $4,000,000. Public Utility bonds led with $31,000,000. and Railroad bonds came next with $12,000,000. Among the stocks are 1514 shares of Amoskeag valued altogether at $1.00. Real estate was assessed at $12,500,000. and rent brought $500,000. Loans and mortagages brought up the rear with $2,500,000. Yielding a revenue of $83,000.

Term bills bring the next largest amount of income. In 1831 the students paid $21,000 for their tuition. Last year the amount was $3,201,000.

The College Dining Halls Received $800,000 and the Union $250,000. Room rents in University dormitories yielded $750,000. This is an average of $150 apiece for the 5000 students who live in University buildings.

Glfts Important

Gifts constitute an increasingly important form of revenue. In the early nineteenth century they did not amount to more than several thousand dollars a year and often in the form of real estate. Records of last year, however, show gifts amounting to $1,400,000. Most gifts are given for a certain field, such as a museum or a type of research. Some are even more specific, such as the recent gift of Mr. Littauer for a School of Public Administration. The remainder are unrestricted, and are spent at the discretion of the University.

It is primarily through restricted gifts that many non-academic institutions are maintained. Of the $337,000 income of Widener Library. $160,000 was given $400, incidentally, was received as over due fines. The net profit of the library was $20,000.

The Fogg Museum received and spent about $128,000. Gifts accounted for $90,000 of the receipts. Gifts to the Arnold Arboretum totalled $120,000 out of the $125,000 income. And of the $25,000 received in the year by the Blue Hills Meteorological Observatory. $20,000 was in the form of gifts.