Last week the New York Times published yet another article about the decline in university endowments.  The second paragraph of that article is just plain scary:

But as the schools, one by one, disclose their numbers, the managers of these endowments are indicating their continued support for a diversified portfolio chock full of alternative investments like hedge funds, private equity and real estate — the very things that have caused so much trouble.

None of these managers would want me on their Boards of Trustees.  In my humble opinion, the goals of non-profit investing should be to ensure that the corpus is maintained, while making a conservative return.  Why?  Well, Harvard University and Yale University, as well as West Virginia University and Marshall University, are just too important to have their endowments (our donations!) frittered away on high-risk, high-reward options, even if the returns generally will be higher over the long term.  Non-profit higher education institutions also need consistent revenue, not obscene profits.  These high-risk strategies should be considered breaches of fiduciary duty.