Looking at the news headlines, you probably wouldn’t think 2025 was a very successful year for the eight Ivy League schools, with unprecedented scrutiny brought to bear upon these schools for letting antisemitism go unchecked on many (but not all) of their campuses, and the federal government led by President Trump cracking down on DEI initiatives, international student visas, and research funding.

However, unlike their collective public relations coffers, their financial coffers rose in fiscal year 2025. As it turns out, the dictates of the market are mainly independent of media cycles!

Ranking of 2025 Ivy League Endowment Performance

So, which Ivy League endowments performed the best in 2025? Which performed the worst? And is the future actually bright for the Ivy League, or is this simply a mirage? Let’s find out!

1. Columbia University: $15.9 Billion

Columbia’s endowment rose 12.4% during FY 2025, a healthy return that exceeds the ten-year average return for this Ivy League institution, which stands at 7.8%.

2. Cornell University: $11.8 Billion

Cornell’s endowment rose 12.3% for a gain of $1.1 billion during FY 2025, far exceeding last year’s modest growth rate of 8.7%, or $860 million, and the ten-year average growth rate of 10%.

3. University of Pennsylvania: $24.8 Billion

Penn’s endowment climbed 12.2% during FY 2025, an increase of $2.5 billion. The school’s annualized return has been 11.4% over the last five years, and 9.2% over the last ten years.

4. Brown University: $8 Billion

Brown’s endowment rose 11.9% in Fiscal Year 2025 (a period that closed on June 30, 2025), placing the college “in the first quartile of endowment and foundation peers managing more than $1 billion in investments, a group that includes more than 130 institutions.” With this return, the endowment rose from $7.2 billion in FY 2024 to $8 billion in FY 2025.

5. Harvard University: $56.9 Billion

Harvard’s endowment, the largest of the Ivy League schools, returned 11.9%, or $3.7 billion, sans operating budget costs, in FY 2025, which marks a modestly more successful fiscal year than in 2024, when Harvard reported an impressive 9.6% return.

6. Yale University: $44.1 Billion

Yale’s endowment returned 11.1%, or $4.5 billion, in FY 2025, leading to an increase of approximately $2.4 billion in the school’s overall endowment size once budget redistributions were taken into account. The average annual return for the Ivy League school’s endowment over the last 10 years has been 9.4%.

7. Princeton University: $36.4 Billion

Princeton’s endowment generated a 11% return in FY 2025, which significantly makes up for the Ivy League schools lackluster return for FY 2024, in which the 3.9% reported growth lagged far behind other Ivies. The average annual return for the Ivy League school’s endowment in the previous ten years has been 9.0%. Over the last 20 years, the exact figure has stood at 9.5%.

8. Dartmouth College: $8.96 Billion

Dartmouth’s endowment climbed 10.8% in FY 2025. Over the past five years, Dartmouth’s annualized return has been 11.6%. Over the past ten years, its return has been 9.7%. Over the past 20 years, its annualized return has been 9.3%.

Ivy League Sees Huge Returns in FY 2025

While Harvard’s $3.7 billion return outpaced its Ivy League peers, it’s only because the school has the largest endowment, by a sizable margin, of the Ivies. When considering only the return for FY 2025, Columbia outpaced its Ivy League peers by a slim margin. Its 12.4% return just barely outpaced Cornell’s, return of 12.3%.

Despite the Trump administration’s best efforts via its high-pressure campaign that stripped many of the Ivies of federal funding, these schools were buoyed by a bull market in FY 2025 that resulted in huge returns across the board. However, as Harvard Magazine pointed out, the school with the largest endowment of them all was still saddled this year with a $113 million operating deficit, which reflected “some effects of the Trump administration’s unprecedented fiscal and regulatory assault on the University and much of higher education.”

One step forward, two steps back, as they say. The rest of the Ivy League, whether their publicity machines will own up to it or not, likely also experienced financial setbacks that served to offset much of these capital gains due to the Trump administration’s party line of reducing the federal funding apparatus.