The College’s endowment generated an 11.7 percent return for the 2025 fiscal year, resulting in a total market value of $3.93 billion. Chief Investment Officer Abigail Wattley ’05 confirmed the figure in an email to the Record.
The return — 8.7 percent after inflation — signifies an investment gain of $420.8 million for the fiscal year, which ended on June 30. For the 2026 annual operating budget, the College plans to draw $179 million from the endowment to fill the gap between annual expenses and revenues, representing an avail of five percent. This sum will fund about half of the College’s total operating expenses in the coming year.
The endowment generated a higher return than last year, when it delivered a return of 10.2 percent — about $355.4 million in 2025 dollars — following declines in 2022 and 2023. The highest total value of the endowment was $4.2 billion, which the Investment Office reported in 2021 after a 49.9 percent return. The 10-year annual return at the conclusion of this fiscal year is 9.4 percent, an increase from last year’s 9.2 percent.
According to Wattley, the College tries to maintain a long-term return goal of five percent after inflation to ensure that the endowment retains purchasing power over time. Achieving this return “is crucial for maintaining intergenerational equity, which is the principle that the endowment should provide the same level of support to the Williams community past, present, and future,” Wattley noted.
Earlier this year, Congress increased the tax on endowment withdrawals from 1.4 percent to eight percent for the wealthiest institutions. However, Williams avoided the endowment tax increase due to an exception for schools with fewer than 3,000 students. The College no longer pays a tax on its endowment.
The College has increasingly looked for ways to cut costs and increase revenues. Last fall, following discussions about how to strengthen the College’s finances, Williams announced that beginning in the fall of 2027, it will begin charging full tuition to students studying abroad who are not on financial aid. When this change is enacted, the College will pay the international program’s tuition — which is often less than the College’s tuition — and keep the rest of the money as revenue.
In addition, the College readjusted the employee health insurance plan, increasing the amount that staff contributes to the program.
To lower costs, the dependent tuition grant will be capped at $20,000 per dependent, for College employees hired after July 1, 2026, down from $36,085 this year.
Last month, the Staff Faculty Initiative, also known as SFIOC, a group of College employees, circulated posters around campus protesting the measures.
Williams, along with other colleges and universities, continues to rely on the endowment to support its operations. This year, peer institutions also saw similar returns on their endowments. Bowdoin, Swarthmore, Brown, and Dartmouth all generated returns between nine and 16 percent.
The Investment Office typically releases a full endowment report, which contains detailed information about its investments and returns, in December.
