Earlier this year, Commonfund, in partnership with the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), released the 2025 NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments (NCSE). The Study examines investment performance, governance and management practices at hundreds of U.S. higher education endowments and related foundations over the July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2025 fiscal year (FY2025).
Following the release of the FY2025 Study, Commonfund did a deep dive into results from the 17 participating community colleges. Below is a comparative analysis of these institutions and the 657 total respondents from the full NCSE Study. Note: Additional types of schools surveyed in the Study are private colleges and universities, public colleges and universities, institutionally-related foundations (IRFs) and combined endowment/foundations. Detailed analysis of these is included in the full report.
Community colleges accounted for $641.8 million of the reported $944.3 billion in assets represented in the full FY2025 Study, with an average endowment size of $34.5 million vs. $1.3 billion, respectively.
THE TOP-LINE RESULTS
Performance
Returns for all time horizons reported in the Study were positive across both groups for all institution sizes. The 17 community colleges participating in this year’s Study reported 11.3 percent average 1-yr. return vs. 10.9 percent for the total NCSE respondents’ cohort. Three-, five- and 10-year average returns for community colleges were reported as 11.7, 10.2 and 8.0 percent, respectively, vs. 10.0, 10.2 and 7.7 percent for total NCSE respondents over the same time periods. Note: There was not enough data to report longer-term returns for the community college group.
Asset Allocation
Community colleges participating in FY2025 reported an overweight to U.S. equities more than three times that of the NCSE total respondents (48.3 percent vs. 13.7 percent) and an overweight of more than double to fixed income (29.4 percent vs. 10.7 percent). Notable underweights compared to total NCSE respondents were reported by community colleges in marketable alternatives (2.1 percent vs. 15.4 percent), private equity (1.8 percent vs. 16.8 percent), private venture capital (0.0 percent vs. 12.2 percent), and real assets (2.5 percent vs. 9.7 percent).
Spending
Community colleges reported an annual effective spending rate of 3.2 percent, falling from the 3.7 percent reported rate for this cohort in last year’s Study. This compares with 4.9 percent for total NCSE respondents, up from 4.8 percent last year. Looking at spending policy, the most frequently reported spending methodology is a percentage of a moving average; 70.6 percent of community colleges reported using this method to determine their annual spending, while 74.3 percent of total NCSE respondents did so. Meanwhile, 11.8 percent of community colleges and 10.8 percent of total NCSE respondents indicated “Other” for their spending methodology.
Gifts
Total gifts to NCSE respondents in FY2025 were $14.0 billion, falling from a total of $15.0 billion reported in FY2024. However, community colleges saw total gifts increase to $14.4 million in FY2025 from $11.6 million in FY2024. In terms of average gifts reported, total schools saw this figure fall to $22.6 million from $24.4 million, while community colleges reported roughly equivalent average gifts of $0.7 million in both years. Further, as it typically is, the median gift size was below that of the average ($0.5 million for community colleges vs. $5.2 million for total NCSE respondents)—a sign that a few outlying institutions received exceptionally large gifts over the course of the fiscal year.
Operating Budget Support
A plurality of total respondents to the FY2025 NCSE reported an increase in funding of the operating budget from the endowment – 42.8 percent – while 37.5 percent reported a decreased rate of operating budget support. Community colleges reported that an average of 16.7 percent of operating budgets were funded from their endowments, comprising a wide range from 0.0 percent to 82.0 percent, compared with total NCSE respondents that reported an average of 15.2 percent. Median values were 1.0 percent vs. 6.1 percent for the community college cohort vs. total respondents.
Overall, these findings suggest that community colleges are making the most of comparatively small endowments through disciplined investment practices, strong recent performance, and rising donor support. Their conservative asset allocations and lower spending rates reflect both prudent stewardship and the constraints of managing more modest resources. At the same time, growing gift totals and competitive returns highlight increasing confidence in their mission and financial management. Together, these trends underscore both the resilience of community colleges and the ongoing need to strengthen their endowment capacity to support long-term stability and broaden their impact.
We hope these top-line insights will serve as a guidepost for your own analysis into these important topics and we encourage you to read the Study in its entirety to best evaluate your performance vs. your benchmark or peers.
