The UC System lost more than $1 billion by the end of its latest fiscal quarter in 2008, dropping its endowment to $5.7 billion.

The UC Board of Regents convened Wednesday to discuss the state of the UC system's investments.

This loss will not impact UC Berkeley's specific endowment for the 2008-09 fiscal year, which currently stands at $2.9 billion, according to UC spokesperson Trey Davis, who attributed the loss to the slumping American economy.

"The market is experiencing some of the biggest losses since the Depression Era," he said, adding that the university's endowment fund has grown considerably overall since 1988.

Davis said students benefit from endowment funds in the form of funding for scholarships, medical and scientific research, faculty recruitment and retention, graduate fellowships and undergraduate scholarships. Up to 25 percent of all endowment income is directed toward student financial support, he said.

Dan Mogulof, the campus's executive director of public affairs, said that since UC Berkeley's endowment- funding has already been allocated to recipients for the current fiscal year, the economic downturn will not have an immediate effect on available funds.

"Endowment funds do not rely solely on investments made to the university, but on private and new donors which are currently on the rise here at Berkeley," he said.

As of Oct. 31, the Campaign for Berkeley has raised more than $1.3 billion as part of the campus's goal to raise $3 billion by 2013. Forty percent of donations will go directly to UC Berkeley endowment funds.

About one-third of UC Berkeley's endowment funding comes from the state, while only 7 percent comes from UC endowment funds, Mogulof said.

Public universities rely heavily on state funding, so they feel cuts to state budgets more immediately and directly than private schools, Mogulof said.

At Stanford University, endowment funds are expected to be down significantly for the next fiscal year, said spokesperson Lisa Lapin.

In an Oct. 30 letter to their

colleagues, Stanford University

President John Hennessy and Provost John Etchemendy said they are seeing a decline in research donations and investment income, which they called a prime indicator of a slumping economy.

Tuition, Stanford's highest source of revenue, has not been raised "out of fairness to students and their families," they wrote.

"All expectations are that investment income for Stanford University will be down significantly the second half of this calendar year," Lapin said. "As a result, the campus is preparing for budget reduction plans."

Mogulof said public and private universities are both susceptible to economic downturns, whether or not the effects are immediate.

"Donors tend to support in good times and bad," he said. "I hope that this will be a trend that will never change."

Tags: ENDOWMENT