Endowments are essentially donations that are restricted to specific purposes set by the donor. They’re not just a general pool of money that a university can tap into for anything it wants.
While there can be some limited flexibility with certain endowments, most are tightly controlled and must be used exactly as intended. Skilled financial teams can sometimes find ways to work within less restrictive endowments, but in general, it’s not easy to repurpose those funds.
There are usually three types of endowments: Restricted, Temporarily, and Unrestricted. The unrestricted are less common and rarely seen.