Data gathered from 809 U.S. colleges and universities for the 2017 NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments (NCSE) show that participating institutions' endowments returned an average of 12.2 percent (net of fees) for the 2017 fiscal year (July 1, 2016 - June 30, 2017) compared with -1.9 percent for the 2016 fiscal year and 2.4 percent for fiscal 2015. Despite th