Several endowment experts noted that Harvard had historically borrowed money to help increase its returns, whereas Yale had not.
Yale does not release such a figure, but several endowment experts think it was a smaller investment and may have been hedged.
Since then, Ms. Mendillo has put her stamp on the endowment, increasing its readily available cash and generating a respectable if not spectacular return, several endowment specialists said of the latest performance.
As head of the National Endowment for the Humanities in the Reagan and Bush administrations, she named conservatives to the panel of experts who made recommendations to her, and opposed some proposals on political grounds, several endowment veterans say.
The endowment subsequently faltered, and several experts on endowments criticized what they called an abrupt departure and attributed some of the fund's subsequent problems to his investment strategy.
Several universities have created endowments for classes and investment clubs to manage.
Mr. Guo takes advantage of the vocal endowments of several singers, especially the coloratura soprano Tomoko Makuuchi, as a concubine, who frequently soars into stratospheric highs.
But this comment was echoed by several pension funds and endowments: "We've been a little frustrated at this next level of product extension.
The University of California, for instance, earned $200 million on the $13 million in endowment money it invested in Sequoia Capital's 1995 fund, but the endowment lost several million on the $10 million it put into Hummer Winblad Venture Partners in 1997, a banner year for venture capital.
Part of the endowment includes several full scholarships, he said, to help a financially disadvantaged students to "go on to do something that could potentially change the world".
