talking point | the blog at LeeHudsonTeslik.com

Harvard’s endowment jumped 23 percent this year, up to $34.9 billion.

Just for kicks I compared that $5.7 billion rise to the nominal GDPs of IMF-member countries (not really a fair comparison, I admit, though if anything it would be Harvard getting handicapped — the “goods and services” it creates yearly would actually exceed its endowment increase, factoring in what it produces via Harvard University Press, the sale of all manner of other Harvardiana, etc.).

At any rate, factoring out all that extra money and looking just at the endowment increase, Harvard did better last year than 50 of the 181 members of the IMF.