The value of Colorado College’s endowment and perpetual trusts reached a record $1.23 billion at the end of the 2026 fiscal year, up 11.3% from $1.11 billion in 2025.
The growth gives CC the second-largest individual endowment in the state, after the University of Denver, which held $1.26 billion at the end of fiscal year 2025, the most recent year data was available.
While a complete report on the endowment’s performance in the 2026 fiscal year is yet to be released, according to CC’s 2025 annual report, the college has outperformed the national average over the past 10 years. However, CC has lagged behind the average return for the 70/30 benchmark — a passive portfolio of 70% stocks and 30% bonds used to assess whether the intensive investment strategies colleges frequently use are worth the fees and complexity.
Chief Financial Officer Lori Seager declined to comment on the issue, citing an inability to speak publicly about the college’s investments until its 2026 financial statements are certified by the Board of Trustees.
Historically, CC’s endowment has made up roughly 20% of its operating budget, helping ensure the college can continue to fund its operations even during periods of less tuition revenue, including this year, when CC underenrolled for the third consecutive year, leading to a $14 million deficit.
Many universities experienced solid growth in 2026, fueled by strong returns from venture capital investments and a booming stock market. However, 2026 was an especially good year for those with stakes in SpaceX, which went public in June at a $1.77 trillion valuation.
This shows the lucrative returns that can come from early-stage venture and private equity investments, which have grown to represent an increasing portion of university endowments since the 1980s, when Yale University Chief Investment Officer David Swensen created the “Yale Model” for endowment management.
The model prioritizes long-term investments in alternative assets, including private equity funds (which aim to increase the value of mature private companies through operational improvements) and venture capital funds (which invest in early-stage companies with large growth potential).
Over Swensen’s 36-year tenure at Yale, the university’s endowment grew from $1.3 billion to more than $40 billion and his model gradually became the standard among wealthy colleges. Today, schools like Yale, Princeton, Bowdoin and Harvard all use the Yale Model and hold significant portions of their portfolios in alternative assets. For example, Harvard allocates 46% of its endowment to private equity and venture capital and 79% to alternative assets.
Currently, CC holds 24% of its endowment in private equity and venture capital and 49% in alternative assets. CC also holds 42% in traditional stocks, much higher than many other elite schools, including Harvard.
While these private equity funds have historically generated outsized returns and did so again last year, they are not without drawbacks. Unlike stocks and bonds, private equity funds are considered illiquid, meaning they cannot easily be sold to cover operating expenses. This is because fund managers generally only distribute cash back to investors when they sell a company, which can take years — The University of Colorado system invested in SpaceX back in 2009, meaning 17 years passed before it could sell its shares on the public market.
This lack of liquidity can create challenges when universities need cash to cover operating expenses and can make it difficult to match short-term investment strategies with market trends.
Fund managers also frequently retain the ability to “call” capital from investors to cover unfunded commitments they have made. A university may make a $100 million commitment to gain access to a fund, invest $20 million first and contribute another $80 million over the remainder of the fund’s lifecycle. These unfunded commitments can put pressure on university budgets in down years. For example, Harvard was forced to borrow $2.5 billion in high-interest debt to cover capital calls from its private equity holdings during the 2008 financial crisis.
Private equity funds have also frequently been criticized for focusing on short-term profits at the expense of the long-term health of the companies they manage. This extractive behavior also often represents a source of tension with idealistic university values.
Early indicators show that private equity returns may be softer this year, with the lingering effects of elevated interest rates and a glut of over 31,000 unsold companies putting pressure on the long-time endowment mainstay. Even Yale, the alternative-investment pioneer, is slashing some of its core private equity holdings this year for the first time in a decade, signaling a potential strategic realignment toward the traditional stocks that constitute a higher share of CC’s endowment.