FINANCIAL OUTLOOK
We have long had a vision of where we were heading. Today we are enormously proud to step forward and announce unequivocally that we have arrived. We stand with the best of the best because of you—the alumni and friends who have supported our endeavor, and whose contributions made an ambitious vision a reality. Our peers today include Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, and the University of Chicago law schools. We rival them in all ways that matter, most notably the caliber of our students and faculty and the level at which we engage and challenge those who study and teach in Vanderbilt and Furman Halls.
Our ascent has been quick and somewhat against the odds, given that we have relied on tuition and fee-based revenue to support our operations to a far greater degree than our peers. Imagination, determination and efficiency compensated for a smaller endowment. “It is a remarkable testament to the resourcefulness and creativity of our community that we accomplish so much with relatively limited resources,” Dean Richard Revesz often remarks. We have always invested in what we’ve deemed worthwhile (including what we consider to be the finest law school campus in the most desirable location in the world) and it has brought us to this celebratory moment.
We are a formidable competitor in every way—except when we compare fiscal resources. Although our endowment is among the largest in the nation, when compared to our peer law schools we are at a disadvantage. Just 10 percent of our annual budget is funded by our endowment while at some of our closest competitors that number is as high as 40 percent. This disparity is the biggest challenge we face in maintaining our top-flight position. In short, we need to build an endowment commensurate with our achievements and goals; our financial situation now needs to catch up with where we are as an academic institution of supreme excellence. To accomplish this next task, we look to our own time-tested resourcefulness and, most importantly, we ask for the continued support of our alumni and friends.
Sources of Operating Funds 2004-05
Uses of Operating Funds 2004-05
