David Randall & Asher Hawkins:

College and university endowments in the United States and Canada collectively lost $93 billion during the 2009 fiscal year, according to a study jointly released Thursday by the National Association of College and University Business Officers and the Commonfund, which manages investments for nonprofit institutions. In a sign of how deeply the pain was felt throughout higher education, the study found that the average institution lost 18.7% after fees.
The report’s findings were the grimmest since 1974, when the average college lost 11.4% of its endowment.