Today, Stanford University announced a 31.7% investment return in its Merged Pool for the year ending June 30, 2026, bringing its 5- and 10-year annualized return to 10.3% and 12.5%, respectively. These returns are net of all internal and external costs, but do not reflect federal excise taxes, which rise to 8.0% this academic year for Stanford and a very small number of other universities.
Stanford’s performance surpassed the 15.5% median return for U.S. college and university endowments last year, as preliminarily reported by Cambridge Associates. Over 5 and 10 years, the median college and university endowment returned 7.2% and 9.9% per year, respectively. Over the same 1-, 5-, and 10-year periods, a typical “70/30” passive portfolio of global stocks and high-quality U.S. bonds returned an annualized 17.8%, 7.4%, and 9.3%, respectively.
“Our results this year were driven by strong performance from our public and private equity positions, along with a very healthy contribution from our absolute return strategies,” said Robert Wallace, chief executive officer of Stanford Management Company. “Performance in any one year should not be given undue weight. Stanford’s 10-year performance, which places the university in the top 5% of higher education endowments, reflects our persistent efforts to rebuild the portfolio with greater concentration and quality. Over the last decade, annual distributions to the operating budget have more than doubled.”
In fiscal year 2027, beginning Sept. 1, 2026, the Merged Pool will disburse more than $2.2 billion to the university, representing roughly one-fifth of Stanford’s operating budget. Distributions from the Merged Pool support Stanford’s teaching and research, and help make the university accessible and affordable.
Total financial aid and other student support from Stanford resources will reach a record $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2027, with endowment distributions contributing nearly half. With these dedicated resources, Stanford announced that it did not increase undergraduate tuition for the 2026-27 academic year and that families of undergraduates with annual incomes below $100,000 pay no tuition, room, or board, while those with incomes below $150,000 pay no tuition. Last year, 60% of undergraduate students were awarded financial aid, average net-effective tuition for all undergraduates was less than $24,000, and nearly 90% of students graduated with no student debt.
“Stanford is organized around a promise that it will be a great educational institution over decades and centuries,” said Jonathan Levin, president of Stanford University. “The endowment helps ensure that promise. It supports the work we do today and allows us to sustain excellence as we explore new frontiers and contribute to the discovery and dissemination of human knowledge.”
Through the Merged Pool, the university’s principal investment vehicle, Stanford invests a substantial majority of the university’s more than 9,000 endowed gifts, as well as other operating funds that the university considers long-term in nature. The value of the Merged Pool on June 30, 2026, was $61.5 billion. A portion of the endowment consisting of commercial real estate near campus is not part of the Merged Pool. The value of the endowment in aggregate as of August 31, 2026, the university’s fiscal year-end, will be published in Stanford’s financial statements in the coming months.
Stanford Management Company, the university’s investment office, manages the Merged Pool and other financial assets in accordance with the principles of duty and care under fiduciary law, as well as Stanford’s Ethical Investment Framework.
