Q: The endowment’s up 16.7 percent. That sounds like great news for Harvard, right?

A: Not completely. Harvard often compares itself to peer institutions—and Stanford, which boasts the third largest university endowment, beat Harvard’s investment return by 2.7 percentage points this past year. Yale—whose endowment is the second-largest among universities, after Harvard—hasn’t released its 2006 numbers yet. But Yale’s rate of returns has consistently outpaced Harvard’s over the past two decades.

All in all, “our return is estimated to have come in just above the average” for the 25 richest universities, according to Harvard’s chief investor, Mohammed A. El-Erian. And “just above the average” is not a place where Harvard likes to be.

Q: The Crimson reported last week that fundraising was up $5 million from last year. But on Monday, The Crimson reported that alumni giving had reached a 17-year low. What gives?

A. The alumni giving rate measures the percentage of grads who donate to their alma mater each year. It’s a barometer of alumni satisfaction—and a sign of the strength of the University’s fundraising operations. The drop in alumni giving is bad news for Harvard.

But not all donors are alumni. For instance, Eli Broad, who with his wife pledged $100 million to a stem-cell research institute at Harvard this past year, is a Michigan State grad. In fact, the three biggest donations to the University in fiscal year 2006 all came benefactors who don’t have Harvard degrees. Donations from non-alums have allowed Harvard to keep its fundraising numbers up, even if alums aren’t opening their checkbooks.

Also, while overall fundraising was technically up last year, inflation-adjusted fundraising actually fell slightly. So even though a Harvard press release touted the University’s “strong fundraising results,” the real story isn’t quite so upbeat.