Book excerpt: "University endowment managers have generally outperformed the market benchmarks. However, their knowledge has not been well documented in any book. This book fills that gap and should be of significant help to all those who want to learn from extensive interviews with a number of endowment managers."—PREM JAIN, McDonough Professor of Accounting and Finance, Georgetown University Learn how higher education's largest endowments consistently achieve higher investment returns than the overall market. The Chief Investment Officers who oversee the top academic endowment funds manage over $400 billion in total assets. Over the last ten years (1999–2009), large endowments returned an average of 6.1%, compared to the S&P 500 index average of –2.22%, an outperformance difference of over 8%. With the recent sharp economic downturn, and a decade of inflation-adjusted flat returns in the overall equities market, institutional and individual investors alike are looking to endowments for proven strategies for improving the performance of their portfolios. Outperform: Inside the Investment Strategy of Billion Dollar Endowments interviews top CIOs from leading endowments, to detail how they consistently outperform the market, what they predict for the coming years, and how small investors can employ their investment philosophies.