Pomona’s endowment exists to fund the College’s educational mission and makes it possible for Pomona to recruit and enroll students from all backgrounds and offer excellent financial aid.
Providing a large share of the College's annual budget, the endowment is drawn on year after year, in what must be a steady and sustainable way, to maintain our lasting commitments to students.
Guided by the principle of intergenerational equity, Pomona’s endowment is carefully managed to ensure that future generations will enjoy its benefits just as much as the current one.
Endowment
Pomona’s endowment consists of over 1,700 individual endowments that the college invests together as one pool, and collectively they are valued at $2.8 billion as of December 2023.
Each individual endowment must be spent in accordance with donor restrictions, which apply to roughly half of Pomona’s individual funds. (Taken as a whole, the funds that are invested to provide sustainable income distributions each year are known as the principal or corpus.)
As is the practice for many institutional investors, Pomona’s endowment is primarily invested in co-mingled funds, where monies from multiple entities are invested as one pool. This provides access to the best public equity managers and allows for investments in private companies that the College would be too small to invest in on its own.
How Students Benefit from Pomona’s Endowment
The College spends roughly $120,000 per year to provide a Pomona education to each student. Student revenues from tuition and other payments account for about half that figure. The rest comes from the annual endowment payout, fundraising and other sources. Every student’s education is subsidized by the endowment.
Special Webinar, February 2024
Watch a special endowment presentation, presented by Jeff Roth, Vice President, Chief Operating Officer and Treasurer, and David Wallace, Chief Investment Officer.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the purpose of the endowment?
The aim of the endowment is to provide strong resources to sustain Pomona’s enduring commitments both to current students and future generations of students and scholars. The endowment, carefully stewarded over decades, allows the College to provide a world-class liberal arts education, recruit students from all backgrounds and offer excellent financial aid.
How much is taken from the endowment each year?
Pomona relies on the endowment year after year to support our academic excellence and extensive financial aid. To make sure we can continue to meet these commitments to students over the decades to come, we have limits on how much we can take from the endowment each year.
Spending from the endowment is governed by the College’s spending rule. Ratified by the Board of Trustees, the rule limits the payout between 4.5% and 5.5% of the average endowment unit market value during the previous 20 quarters.
The precise amount is determined by applying a 2% growth rate to the previous year’s spending per unit, subject to the 4.5%-5.5% lower and upper limits.
Who manages the endowment?
The Investments Committee of the Board of Trustees sets the endowment’s investment policy and approves the hiring and firing of investment managers. The day-to-day management of the College’s investments is conducted by Pomona’s Investments Office.
Why doesn’t Pomona take withdrawals from the endowment for one-time spending needs?
Currently, the College is fully utilizing its endowment. Pomona depends on the endowment to support the operations of the College not only today, but for the future; Every $10 million in endowment provides approximately $500,000 in operating budget support. So, if the College were to take $20 million out to reduce tuition or fund an urgent need now, we would have to find an immediate replacement for $1 million of operating revenues now and every year moving forward.
Are any of the funds collected from students invested in the endowment?
Funds collected from students, such as tuition and fees, are separate from the endowment and are used solely to support College operations.
What does Pomona disclose about its endowment holdings?
On an annual basis, Pomona typically discloses information about its investment holdings in two documents. The first is in the footnotes to our annual financial statements. The footnotes contain information on the amount of undrawn capital commitments to private funds, liquidity provisions of marketable assets, annual performance, and high-level asset allocation.
The College also provides an annual factsheet to existing and potential purchasers of charitable gift annuities. This factsheet also shows the College’s asset allocation, along with investment returns against various benchmarks.
Learn more from our financial information and disclosures page.
What are the current policies related to endowment holdings?
Beyond the requirements of U.S. law, Pomona’s investment policies do not single out any industry, nation, nationality or region of the world for investment exclusion. There are no plans to alter this approach to single out any individual industry, nation, nationality or region for exclusion.
How is information about Pomona’s endowment and budget shared with the community?
Senior staff from the Treasurer’s division often speak with stakeholder groups including donors, faculty, staff, and ASPC regarding the budget and management of the College’s endowment. If you are interested in arranging for one of these meetings, please send a request to treasurer@pomona.edu.
Where can I find more details on Pomona’s finances?
Pomona's annual financial statements covering more than a decade are available on the financial statements page.
Who can I contact if I have more questions?
Budget Questions: If you have questions about Pomona College's budget, please email treasurer@pomona.edu.
Donor Questions: For questions about donations, please email supportsagehens@pomona.edu.
Prospective Investment Partners: If you are an external investment manager or third-party marketer, please email prospectiveinvestments@