The five largest university endowments in the world are Harvard, Yale, University of Texas, Princeton and Stanford. : The five largest university endowments were all larger than $20 billion and belonged to Harvard, Yale, University of Texas, Princeton and Stanford. College endowment returns saw the highest levels in three years in 2017, rebounding to an average of 12.2% from 15.5% in 2017. According to the National Association of College and University Business Officers and asset management firm Commonfund, returns were low in 2015 at an average of 2.4%, but they dropped to -1.9% in 2016.