:It's true. UPenn: 4.25 billion (Fiscal Year 2005).  Harvard: $2.8 billion (FY2005).  And so on.  You see, the endowment comes largely from donations, much of which comes from alumni.  Harvard-Princeton-Yale tend to really clean up because they are small and have the most name recognition, and at the same time the wealthiest alumni as well as attracting the biggest outside donors.  The budget, on the other hand, comes largely from things like tuition, investment income such as real estate, and a smaller portion from endowment proceeds (this portion is larger at schools with outsize endowments like Princeton).  Penn is larger in terms of number of students than any Ivy other than Cornell (which is lower on the totem pole than Penn).  It has a large hospital system attached (although I think this was spun off in administration a few years ago), owns a big chunk of Philadelphia, and is the largest private employer in Pennsylvania.  It's budget, therefore, is biggest in the Ivy League.