Comment by laGrenouille

I see a lot of confusion about college endowments on HN. It's best to think of them not as saving accounts but financial instruments. Annual university budgets make use of the returns off of the endowment, often covering more than half of their expenses. Their long-term plan is to never tap into the principal. In fact, the hope is to increase the principal with new donations to expand the annual returns to fight against inflation and support new initiatives.