This study is based on a survey that Cambridge Associates administers annually to our endowment clients. The report that follows summarizes returns, asset allocation, and other investment-related data for 326 endowments for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025. This year’s report includes commentary and exhibits across three separate sections: Investment Portfolio Returns, Benchmarking, and Asset Allocation and Implementation.
Most endowments again reported double-digit returns in fiscal year 2025, and the profile of top-performing institutions also stood out this year. Many top quartile performers had high allocations to public equities. Other endowments at the top end of the performance rankings were among the highest allocators to private investments in our universe and earned strong returns from alternative strategies, showing there were multiple paths to be a top-performing endowment in fiscal year 2025. This section highlights the performance story of the past year and also looks at results over longer-term periods.
Investment Portfolio Returns
Benchmarking
The choice of benchmark for private equity and venture capital (PE/VC) continues to be the most impactful decision when it comes to evaluating an endowment’s return versus its policy portfolio benchmark. In recent years where public equity markets outperformed private strategies, benchmarking PE/VC to a public index resulted in a high bar for a diversified endowment to clear. This section summarizes the various approaches that endowments use for benchmarking total portfolio performance and compares endowment performance versus policy benchmark returns.
Asset Allocation and Implementation
Since 2022, shifts in asset allocation trends have been more muted. The average peer allocation to public equities has increased a bit over this timeframe, but it is not because endowments are changing their asset allocation policies to invest more heavily in public assets. In fact, our last three annual surveys have shown that there have been more endowments lowering their long-term targets to public equity compared to those raising their targets. This section covers this and other topics, such as the number of external investment managers and the types of investment vehicles used.
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