Last Friday, the College announced that its endowment climbed to a record $3.6 billion after earning a 26 percent return in the 2026 fiscal year, which ended June 30.

The return greatly surpassed the 16.2 percent median for college and university endowments, according to Cambridge Associates, a firm that tracks nationwide endowment performance. Bowdoin’s long-term results also rank in the top one percent of endowments that the firm monitors.

“It will certainly help next year, but the full impact will not be felt until fiscal year 2029/30,” Matthew Orlando, senior vice president for finance and administration and treasurer, wrote in an email to the Orient.

The lag comes from the College’s spending formula, which draws five percent annually from the endowment’s average value over the previous 12 quarters, so this year’s gain will be gradually introduced to the budget.

Ten years ago, tuition and fees covered around half of Bowdoin’s operating budget. Now, the endowment supplies half of this year’s $250 million budget, while net tuition and fees make up only 38 percent.

According to Orlando, that shift has a downside.

“The biggest change is that our operating budget is now much more sensitive to what happens in the financial markets,” Orlando wrote.

As health plans and energy costs also rise, the College has built larger reserves as a buffer against market volatility.

Orlando stressed that the impacts of the endowment, however, have a direct impact on the student experience.

“The endowment’s impact is everywhere,” Orlando wrote.

It has helped the College expand financial aid, initiate new programs such as the Digital Excellence Commitment, add faculty tenure lines and invite celebrated speakers and performers to campus.

Financial aid receives the largest share of endowment spending, about 46 percent. Orlando described that support as crucial to Bowdoin’s commitment to need-blind admission for all students, which it shares with only 11 colleges and universities.

“Without our long history of endowment gifts in support of financial aid, combined with exceptional portfolio management, the financial aid program at Bowdoin would not be what it is today,” Orlando wrote.

In the 2026 fiscal year, endowment scholarship funds covered 80 percent of the College’s financial aid budget.

In the announcement, President Safa Zaki credited the record return to the investment team, led by Chief Investment Officer Boris Raykin, and the rest of the Investment Committee.