With the Trump administration seeking to cut federal funding for colleges and universities, you might be wondering whether the endowments of these institutions of higher education might be able to fill those gaps. Todd L. Ely, a professor of public administration at the University of Colorado Denver, explains what endowments are and the constraints placed on them.

Endowments are pools of financial investments that belong to a nonprofit. These assets produce a revenue stream, typically from dividends, interest and realized capital gains. The funds endowments hold usually originate as charitable donations made to support an institution’s mission.

In most cases with higher education endowments, this wealth, which helps buoy a nonprofit’s budget, is supposed to last forever.

Contributions to endowments are tax-deductible for donors who itemize their tax returns. Once these funds are invested, they grow generally tax-free. But beginning in 2018, the federal government imposed a 1.4% excise tax on dozens of higher education institutions with relatively large endowments.

Few colleges or universities have a single endowment fund.

That’s because the donors who provide gifts large and small to the school over the years direct their donations to different funds reserved for specific purposes.

Harvard University’s endowment, worth $53.2 billion at the end of its 2024 fiscal year, for example, consists of roughly........

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