Key Takeaways
- • Notre Dame's endowment returned 10% in fiscal year 2024, reaching $17.9 billion in total value—a recovery after two consecutive years of minimal growth and outperforming the 8.7% median return of the 20 largest university endowments.
- • The university's total investment portfolio, including endowment, working capital, and additional assets, now stands at $20.4 billion, demonstrating broad-based portfolio strength across multiple asset classes.
- • Public equity markets drove the year's performance with an 18.4% return, while private markets remained relatively flat, reflecting subdued M&A activity and lower demand for private company acquisitions in the post-COVID recovery period.
- • Notre Dame's investment strategy targets a 40% allocation to private equity, 35% to public equity, and 25% to lower-risk multi-strategy assets, reflecting an equity-biased approach grounded in long-term historical outperformance.
- • The endowment operates under an "intergenerational time horizon" principle, prioritizing multi-decade returns over short-term performance to benefit current and future generations of students.
Summary
Notre Dame's endowment pool delivered a 10% return in fiscal year 2024, reversing two consecutive years of minimal growth and establishing the university's investment portfolio as a solid performer within the broader higher education endowment landscape. The endowment reached $17.9 billion, while the university's total investment portfolio—encompassing endowment assets, working capital, and other holdings—grew to $20.4 billion. This performance exceeded the median 8.7% return posted by the 20 largest university endowments during the same period, according to Notre Dame's 2024 Annual Report.
The rebound was driven primarily by strength in public equities, which generated an 18.4% return in 2024. In contrast, private markets remained relatively flat, reflecting ongoing challenges in the mergers and acquisitions environment. According to Jason Reed, associate faculty director of the Notre Dame Institute for Global Investing, limited M&A activity in the post-COVID period has suppressed demand for private company acquisitions, thereby compressing valuations and returns in the private equity space. "You were seeing limited amounts of M&A activity post-COVID, and because of that, the demand for buying these companies is going down," Reed noted, "and therefore returns would also go down."
Notre Dame's investment strategy reflects a pronounced equity bias, with the portfolio targeting 40% allocation to private equity, 35% to public equity, and 25% to lower-risk multi-strategy holdings. Tim Dolezal, vice president and chief investment officer, emphasized that both public and private equity have historically outpaced returns on other asset classes over extended time horizons, justifying the portfolio's tilt toward equities. Historically, private equity has been a primary growth driver for the endowment, though 2024's outperformance was anchored by public market strength.
The university operates its endowment under an explicit "intergenerational time horizon" principle, prioritizing long-term value creation for future students over short-term performance metrics. This philosophy enables the investment office to tolerate cyclical volatility and maintain strategic allocations without reactive rebalancing in response to annual results. With a 20-year annualized return of 10%, Notre Dame's endowment continues to position itself as a well-managed institutional asset supporting the university's academic and operational priorities across decades.
The rebound was driven primarily by strength in public equities, which generated an 18.4% return in 2024. In contrast, private markets remained relatively flat, reflecting ongoing challenges in the mergers and acquisitions environment. According to Jason Reed, associate faculty director of the Notre Dame Institute for Global Investing, limited M&A activity in the post-COVID period has suppressed demand for private company acquisitions, thereby compressing valuations and returns in the private equity space. "You were seeing limited amounts of M&A activity post-COVID, and because of that, the demand for buying these companies is going down," Reed noted, "and therefore returns would also go down."
Notre Dame's investment strategy reflects a pronounced equity bias, with the portfolio targeting 40% allocation to private equity, 35% to public equity, and 25% to lower-risk multi-strategy holdings. Tim Dolezal, vice president and chief investment officer, emphasized that both public and private equity have historically outpaced returns on other asset classes over extended time horizons, justifying the portfolio's tilt toward equities. Historically, private equity has been a primary growth driver for the endowment, though 2024's outperformance was anchored by public market strength.
The university operates its endowment under an explicit "intergenerational time horizon" principle, prioritizing long-term value creation for future students over short-term performance metrics. This philosophy enables the investment office to tolerate cyclical volatility and maintain strategic allocations without reactive rebalancing in response to annual results. With a 20-year annualized return of 10%, Notre Dame's endowment continues to position itself as a well-managed institutional asset supporting the university's academic and operational priorities across decades.
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