A study conducted by the National Association of College and University Business Officers and Commonfund, has revealed that the endowment funds for universities and colleges, in the last fiscal year, has fallen down by of 18.7%.

Many wealthy universities, like Harvard, Yale and Stanford, lost more than 26% of their endowment values. The study analyzed 842 institutions with a total of $306 billion, as endowment assets.

In fiscal year 2009, the universities, spent 4.4% of their endowment assets. It was found that 43% of the institutions had increased their spending rate during the fiscal year
2009, while 25 percent had decreased it, and 28 percent reported no change.

"Unless there's a significant move in asset values, this is likely to go up over next few years, as the base goes down", said Verne Sedlacek, the President of the Commonfund.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R, Ia.), the Senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee that said colleges shouldn't rely on double-digit endowment losses to raise tuition or freeze student aid.

"Many of them relied on some risky investments, like hedge funds, to get big gains in recent years, and now those strategies are causing losses. Students shouldn't bear the brunt of colleges' easy-come, easy-go investment strategy. A lot of colleges still have plenty of money in the bank", he said.