How colleges lost billions to hedge funds in 2016

[...]starting in the 1970s, the wealthiest universities shifted from a conservative investment strategy centered around bonds to more aggressive investment in stocks and other equities. Without sufficient resources to establish their own in-house hedge funds, the rest of America's colleges and universities have followed the lead of those elite eight by turning over increasing shares of their endowment portfolios to actual hedge funds. Hedge-fund performance may remain volatile even if President Trump succeeds in rolling back Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and other Obama-era regulations. Dodd-Frank required Securities and Exchange Commission registration of hedge funds and the separation of hedge funds and consumer banking to prevent this volatility from bringing down the broader banking system. [...]the wealthiest eight institutions were able to increase spending on university operations just from their endowments from $9,574 per student in 1977 to over $60,000 per student in recent years.