Finance Column: Update on Colby’s Endowment

This past fall, I wrote an article that gave a broad overview of Colby’s roughly $900 million dollar endowment. This article highlighted the overall purpose, performance, and holdings of this portfolio, yet much has changed since the beginning of this academic year, and an update is needed.

First, it must be noted that as of March 2021, the College’s endowment has reached a value of over one billion ($1,000,000,000) dollars for the first time in the school’s history. This was a major milestone for Colby, as this means that since the end of the 2019 fiscal year 2019, the college’s endowment’s value has grown by over $114 million dollars. The ending value of the endowment in FY19 was a staggering $886 million.

The increase in Colby’s endowment also brings it closer to that of other NESCAC schools. Using FY19 data, the average endowment size of all New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) colleges was just under $1.2 billion dollars, yet this number has certainly increased, as U.S. equity markets have flourished over the past year.

Colby now joins the ranks of Williams, Amherst, Tufts, Bowdoin, Hamilton, Middlebury, and Wesleyan as all of these schools boast endowment values greater than one billion dollars. However, Colby still has quite a bit of financial ground to make up if it wishes to challenge the likes of Amherst and Williams, as both schools’ endowments exceed $2.5 billion dollars. Williams, specifically, has been over the $1 billion mark since the “early 2000s,” according to their website, so the Mules are still relatively far behind, when compared to the Ephs.

Colby also made a second endowment-focused announcement in March. The College announced on March 4 that Deborah Shufrin was appointed to become the new Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of the College.

In her new role, Shufrin will take the reins of Colby’s impressive endowment, overseeing all investments and strategies that the College makes and takes with its financial backbone. 

Shufrin is certainly prepared for this new and important job. Before coming to Colby this spring, she spent over a decade at Brandeis University as the school’s Director of Investments, a similar role to that which she now holds on Mayflower Hill. She has also worked for financial firms including MFS Investment Management and Morgan Stanley in the past, and she spent over two years as a Deputy Chief Investment Officer for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Safe to say, she is experienced.

President David Greene also extolled Shufrin’s qualifications.

“[Schufrin] has a passion for investing and discovering inefficiencies in markets that can lead to greater returns,” Greene said. “The breadth of her professional experiences makes her deeply knowledgeable about and ideally suited to oversee a diversified portfolio like Colby’s endowment.” 

Shufrin began working at the College on April 1, and she will hopefully be with Colby for years to come, all while overseeing a growing endowment.

~ Sam Leathe ‘21