Canada’s big universities ranked by endowment

Schools use their endowments to build things, for research, to fund bursaries --- in short, the more money a school has saved up, the more it can spend on its current students. The size of an endowment reflects the age of the school: older ones have had more time to woo donations. But age aside, they reflect how much students care about their alma mater, because that’s where most of the money comes from. Here are Canada’s 20 biggest schools, ranked by endowment per student.

1. McGill

$808-million (March 2010) pop. 27,971

Per student: $28,869

2. Queen’s

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$528-million (Apr. 2010) pop. 18,733

Per student: $28,189

3. British Columbia

$1,008-million (Dec. 2010) pop. 38,052

Per student: $26,490

4. Toronto (not including colleges’ endowments)

$1,757-million (Dec. 2010)  pop. 68,585

Per student: $25,617

5. Alberta

$718-million (March 2010) pop. 34,240

Per student: $20,969

6. McMaster

$461-million (Apr. 2010) pop. 23,312

Per student: $19,775

7. Calgary

$441-million (March 2010) pop. 26,297

Per student: $16,769

8. Manitoba

$301-million (March. 2010) pop.21,724

Per student: $13,855

9. Carleton

$215-million (Apr. 2010) pop. 19,874

Per student: $10,818

10. Guelph

$189-million (Apr. 2010) pop. 22,045

Per student: $8,573

11. York

$294-million (Dec. 2010) pop. 43.693

Per student: $6,728

12. Waterloo

$191-million, (Apr. 2010) pop. 28,837

Per student: $6,623

13. Ottawa

$165-million (Apr. 2010) pop. 30,826

Per student: $5,352

14. Concordia

$111-million (May 2010)  pop. 21,885

Per student: $5,071

15. Western

$153-million (Apr. 2010) pop. 31,126

Per student: $4,915

16. Ryerson

$86-million (Apr. 2010) pop. 19,681

Per student: $4,369

17. Montreal

$128-million (June 2009) pop. 41,194

Per student: $3,107

Information for Laval, Athabasca and UQAM was not available.