THE WONDERFUL ride in the stock market that benefited so many investors last year also paid off handsomely for colleges and universities.
The Johns Hopkins University's endowment -- the sum of gifts and bequests and the interest earned on them over the years -- passed the billion-dollar mark last year, rising from $982,618,000 to $1,156,598,000.
That's a 17.7 percent increase, lower than the 21.9 percent average posted by the nation's colleges and universities. But the bigger the endowment, the harder to keep up with the average. Hopkins' endowment is the 23rd largest in the country, well behind first-place Harvard, which possesses a cool $11 billion.
Universities invest endowment funds mostly in stocks and bonds and spend some of the money every year -- less than 5 percent in Hopkins' case, according to a spokesman. (Even at 5 percent, that's about $50 million.)
An endowment is more than a rainy-day fund. It also earns bragging rights, although Hopkins didn't toot its horn particularly loudly when its endowment broke into 10 figures.
Here, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, are other endowment increases of interest to Marylanders. The first figure is for 1996, the second for 1997:
Loyola College: $86.9 million, $111.6 million.
Ohio State University: $649.6 million, $767.7 million.
University System of Maryland: $210.9 million, $283.3 million.
Hood College: $42.6 million, $49.5 million.
College of Notre Dame of Maryland: $19.5 million, $23.6 million.
Also going up: College tuition
Johns Hopkins was equally quiet when it raised tuition for 1998-1999. Tuition and mandatory fees will go up this fall by 4.5 percent, the lowest percentage increase since 1989 but still about 2 percentage points above last year's inflation.
Tuition goes from $21,700 to $22,680.
Officials said the university had planned a 5 percent increase but scaled it back after discussions of the "net cost" of a college education -- the difference between the "sticker price" and available financial aid dollars for those who need help.
Sailing with the Pride by surfing the Web
It's been fun watching and hearing Leslie Ann Bridgett, the "teacher aboard" the Asia-bound Pride of Baltimore II, as she conducts online lessons from the ship and takes us through the Panama Canal in a spectacular video Pride officials have made available to schools at cost ($10 for dubbing and postage).
