Divest Now? Understanding Calls for Divestment in U.S. Institutions of Higher Education
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Todd L. Ely
Abstract
Divestment represents an internal policy to activate an organization’s investments for purposes beyond financial returns. For leaders of higher education institutions, calls for divestment raise complicated questions about the appropriateness, feasibility, and effectiveness of such policies. Divestment reflects one facet of socially-responsible investing and accompanies broader controversy over making investment decisions based on Environmental, Social, Governance considerations. While divestment is not solely relevant for nonprofit organizations, demands often target private, nonprofit colleges and universities in the United States due to endowment wealth, as well as public counterparts who typically manage endowments through nonprofit entities. This policy brief details how divestment works, the related challenges, and whether divestment is effective from a financial or policy perspective.
In the Spring of 2024, campus demonstrations erupted across the United States calling for colleges and universities to divest institutional endowments from investments tied to Israel and military action in Gaza. The demands for divestment continue a long legacy of social activism that emerged in the 1960s focused on using campus financial resources to influence broader policy objectives. While divestment is not solely relevant for nonprofit organizations, private colleges and universities in the United States hold tremendous wealth while their public counterparts typically manage endowments through affiliated nonprofit entities. Divestment reflects one facet of socially responsible investing and accompanies broader political controversy over the appropriateness of making investment decisions based on Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) considerations.
Campus leaders need to understand what divestment represents as a policy lever, how it actually works, the challenges to divestment, examples of past efforts, whether it is effective from a financial or policy perspective, and whether there are mechanisms appropriate to mediate calls for divestment. Although the divestment demands related to Israel most recently occupied headlines, the concept itself is best treated as a policy tool for leaders to potentially align the deployment of assets with an organization’s mission. This policy brief presents a research-informed discussion of divestment by colleges and universities to help inform campus policy makers.
1 What is Divestment?
Divestment, or divestiture, broadly refers to the act of selling an organization’s current investments tied to certain targeted companies or activities. In the context of divestment for social or ethical reasons, the term represents a policy to no longer hold investments tied to activities deemed in conflict with the organization’s mission or values. Historically, divestment campaigns in the United States have prominently targeted Apartheid in South Africa, human rights abuses in Sudan, the fossil fuel industry, tobacco companies, private prisons, firearms, among others. Institutional investors other than colleges and universities may also undertake divestment actions, including pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and private foundations as examples, but higher education remains a visible focal point of such activity.
Semantics matter when discussing divestment. Some institutions shy away from referring to changes in investment policy as divestments. For example, despite past divestment actions related to South Africa and tobacco companies, the University of Michigan does not consider later investment changes related to Russia in 2022 and climate change in 2021 as divestments, since the shifts resulted from financial factors (government sanctions and an effort to reduce climate change-related risk on investments, respectively) (Wells and Rayes 2024). While divestment focuses squarely on investments, the broader term of dissociation refers to avoiding financial relationships – like funded research, joint programs, procurement, or grants – with the targeted companies or organizations.
2 Divestment in Higher Education
College and university endowment funds are the primary target of policy-related divestment demands. Endowment funds arguably serve as a proxy for an institution’s power, prestige, and legitimacy (Ely et al. 2023). Since the role of campus leadership is not to determine public policy beyond its institutional borders, endowment funds present a prominent vehicle to be leveraged for expressing a formal, public, and tangible policy position. Divestment demands target endowments for the same reason that banks are targets of robbers – “because that’s where the money is.”
Endowment funds are a collection of assets invested to generate a long-term revenue stream to support the institution’s mission, which typically includes funds for student financial aid, academic programming, faculty, general operations, among other uses. In other words, a college or university’s endowment is typically comprised of many different funds with varied goals and restrictions. For example, Columbia University’s endowment includes around 6,300 separate funds (Columbia University 2023). Different types of endowment exist, including permanent, term, and quasi or board-designated endowment, that further complicate the management and use of the funds based on donor-imposed restrictions (Calabrese and Ely 2017).
At the end of fiscal year 2021, higher education endowments in the United States totaled nearly $1 trillion. Endowment wealth remains heavily concentrated in a relatively small number of institutions. The top-10 postsecondary institutions hold more than a third and the top 50 hold nearly two-thirds of all endowment assets nationally (U.S. Department of Education 2023). Typically, investment objectives include preserving and growing the endowment to support the broad educational mission in perpetuity. An endowment payout policy guides how much of the endowment and its earnings can be spent each year while preserving the purchasing power of the investments. As of 2020, 48 percent of annual endowment payouts supported student financial aid (ACE 2021).
During recent calls for divestment from Israel, some protesters carried signs proclaiming slogans like “Your tuition funds genocide.” This highlights an important misunderstanding about endowments. Despite some fungibility, endowments are funded primarily by donations and investment growth rather than any direct funding by students’ tuition or fees or, in the case of public colleges and universities, by tax dollars. Regardless of the source of endowment funds, campus communities – including students, staff, faculty, alumni, and benefactors – all have legitimate interests, whether as donor or beneficiary, in the use of a college or university’s endowment assets.
3 How Does Divestment Work?
The divestment process varies across institutions. Consistent elements include the submission of a divestment proposal, engagement and consultation with stakeholders, analysis of the proposal’s implications, formal consideration, deciding on the proposal, planning for divestment if approved, and implementation and monitoring.
Calls for divestment can surface internally among campus leadership or, more frequently, come from the community either informally through protest and public calls for action or formally through a prescribed process for elevating such proposals. Some colleges and universities, including Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Massachusetts, use advisory committees as a venue for the campus community to raise investment concerns (ACSRI 2025; PIIAC 2025; SRIAC 2025). The institution’s governing authority typically conducts a study of the implications of a divestment proposal before proceeding to any formal deliberation. The actual divestment process begins with a decision on a proposed action whether to divest from specific investments. Typically, this entails a vote on a policy statement made by those in charge of the endowment (usually the governing board). An affirmative decision kicks off the challenging process of clearly communicating the decision, setting criteria for investments that violate the policy, and working to identify the targeted investments among the endowment’s investment portfolio.
Once identified, officials determine if and how the identified investments can be unwound by considering any legal restrictions, internal or external, tied to the funds or investments. Then, a timeline can be established for the actual act of divesting by selling investments and replacing them with others. Changes in directly-held investments are often prioritized due to the ease of selling associated with greater institutional control. A goal is to limit the impacts of the divestment on the long-term investment strategy, while also minimizing additional transaction and investment costs.
Finally, a system is installed that helps guide future investments based on screening criteria (lists of companies to be avoided) reflecting the divestment policy, monitors continued compliance of existing investments, and includes a process for reconsideration if warranted. Importantly, divestment isn’t a static action, since times change and divestment may ultimately prove counterproductive to supporting the initial social objective. As an example, Columbia University rescinded its divestment policy targeting companies operating in Sudan, in place from 2006 to 2020, after determining that investment activity was needed to help alleviate the human rights abuses that prompted the initial divestment (ACSRI 2021). The timeline to complete a divestment action varies based on factors including the breadth of the targeted investments, the complexity and direct control of existing investments, and the formal process for considering, approving, and implementing such actions.
4 Why is Divestment Complicated?
4.1 Politics, Precedent, and Compliance
Divestment presents a number of challenges for colleges and universities. Divestment requires taking a formal stance to stigmatize companies and label them as “undesirable” based on where they operate, how they operate, or the nature of the goods and services they produce. Such a decision is inherently political and intended to reflect the values of the institution, but consensus on such issues is often lacking. Even if there is consensus that an institution should no longer condone an activity via investments, divesting for political or social reasons fundamentally challenges the traditional role of higher education endowments.
If the purpose of an endowment is solely to invest, preserve, and grow assets to support the broad educational mission, then political and social objectives become secondary to fiduciary obligations focused on balancing risk and returns. Turning money managers into arbiters of right and wrong by limiting investment discretion clearly changes how endowment funds are viewed and operated. To insulate the endowment, college and university leaders can take the position that the investment policy should not be influenced by political or social considerations.
Alternatively, college and university leaders must determine whether ethical and moral considerations can be ignored in institutional investment decisions. If a divestment action is approved, then the decision serves as a precedent and sets a baseline for the type of issue the institution is willing to address through investment policies. An institution must consider when an issue is too big, too small, or too contentious to be addressed through divestment.
External factors also complicate the political calculus of divestment decisions. Universities and colleges may not always be free to divest their endowments even if they are willing to do so. While more salient for public institutions, some state laws exist that limit certain divestment actions or restrict the use of ESG investment practices (Ely 2024). In addition to the uncertain risk of alienating past, current, and future individual and institutional donors, institutions open themselves up to potential political attacks when taking (or not taking) divestment actions. Divestment efforts run the risk of feeding into a broader culture war over the appropriate role of institutional investments, including actions by attorneys general from other states (Lorin 2024). Public colleges and universities may face even greater political pressures from state elected officials who often control higher education budgets and the appointment of boards of regents.
Even more fundamental for endowment managers is the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act, which governs the investment and use of funds by nonprofits as law in almost all states. These state laws mandate a “prudent” approach to investment frequently interpreted as prioritizing an endowment’s investment returns (Ely 2024). Alternatively, some advocates of socially-responsible investment argue that fiduciary duty actually requires that colleges and universities consider ESG factors when investing.
4.2 Process
Beyond the decision to divest, the actual process presents challenges for modern campus leaders and endowment managers. Divestment is certainly feasible, as seen in past cases, but the divestment target and the institution’s current investment practices determine the degree of difficulty. The nature of the targeted investments determines the scale and scope of the divestment. Past divestment actions by Columbia University help illustrate the variation in complexity.
The private prison operator industry represents a relatively small and concentrated industry with only a few major companies, which makes divestment easier to implement and avoids major disruption of Columbia University’s long-term investment strategy. The “Non-Investment List” guiding the policy’s compliance includes only two domestic and three foreign companies to avoid (ACSRI n.d.). Alternatively, the tobacco industry is much larger with 13 domestic and 64 foreign companies in countries ranging from Bangladesh to Zimbabwe. Columbia University’s policy establishes boundaries to refrain from “investing in companies engaged in the manufacture of tobacco and tobacco products, but not from investing in companies who supply peripheral materials and supplies to the tobacco industry or distribute these products” (ACSRI n.d.).
Moving farther along the continuum of divestment complexity, Columbia University’s Investment Policy on Fossil Fuels, approved in 2021, proves more complicated. While the university maintains no direct equity investments in publicly-traded oil and gas companies, the policy pledges to avoid future “investments in private funds that primarily invest in oil and gas companies” and to exit existing investments contrary to the policy as they mature or earlier (Columbia Finance n.d.). Greater breadth and market share of the divestment target, whether based on geography or industry, translates into a more challenging divestment process.
Some calls for campus divestment from Israel target not only companies domiciled in Israel, but also defense and commercial firms – including Caterpillar whose tractors are used by the Israeli military, technology companies – like Google and Amazon – that supply services to the Israeli government, and certain companies that operate in Israel – like Airbnb which has listed rentals in disputed settlements (Nam 2024). Targeting major companies and industries for divestment based on slivers of their activity introduces additional challenges in applying consistent criteria for divestment across companies and industries, limiting investment options, and disrupting long-term strategies.
In addition to the nature of the divestment action, an institution’s existing investments and strategy determine how challenging it is to fulfill a change in policy. The benefits of a diversified investment portfolio result in endowments holdings many different investments by design, but also limits exposure to any single geography, sector, industry, or company. The emergence of low-cost, market-tracking index funds provides an easy way for institutional investors to invest efficiently. Divestment, though, can be complicated with such funds since they tend to hold stock in a large basket of companies based on standardized indices. For example, if a college or university invests in an index fund that tracks the S&P500 then it must sell the entire investment just to get rid of any exposure to one of the 500 indexed companies.
Although the institution ultimately controls its investments, the complexity of the investment strategy and the dependence on external money managers limits short-term flexibility. Over time, college and university endowments shifted from internal investment management with direct ownership of specific company stocks and bonds to an increasing dependence on external investment managers. Colleges and universities simultaneously increased exposure to more illiquid investments, so-called “alternatives,” offered by these third-party investment managers in the form of private equity and real assets (Dimmock et al. 2024).
Popularized by the success of David Swensen while managing Yale University’s endowment, alternative investments (Dimmock et al. 2024; Swensen 2009) often have lock-up periods and portfolio management agreements that limit the ability of colleges and universities to move away from these third-party investment products or pick and choose specific companies or industries. For example, Columbia University reports that due to lockup provisions, “the University has no discretion as to withdrawal of its investment in private equity and real asset funds…the remaining life of these private equity and real asset funds is up to 12 years” (Columbia University 2023). In other words, the more complex investment strategies of modern endowments reduce the ability to make rapid investment changes in response to divestment demands.
Even determining the specific holdings of an endowment proves difficult, especially for outsiders, given the complexity of investments and limited public transparency available through the IRS Form 990, audited financial statements, and inconsistent annual endowment reporting. Endowment managers rightfully fear the risk of providing too much public visibility about the institution’s investment strategy, but this results in an information vacuum that can exacerbate misunderstandings by those calling for divestment.
From a cost perspective, the same opaqueness that plagues transparency of endowment holdings also limits the visibility into the costs of divestment. While dated, the University of California decision, in 1986, to divest $3.1 billion in South African-related investments within a three-year period came with an estimated cost of $118 million (Mathews 1986). During divestment, there are short-term transaction costs as colleges and universities unwind existing investment positions and find suitable, more specialized investment alternatives. In the medium and long-term, organizations may shoulder higher ongoing investment fees in addition to higher monitoring and compliance costs. Finding alternative investment options, including custom indexing or funds focused on socially-responsible investments, has gotten easier over time, but is not costless.
To recap, the nature of a college or university’s investment approach influences the complexity of any divestment action. Divestment, as a departure from the current investment strategy, can undermine some primary advantages of endowments, namely the ability to widely diversify holdings and access proprietary investments, the capacity to hold illiquid investments, and controlling investment costs, including transaction fees, as relatively large institutional investors. Indeed, Grady-Benson and Sarathy (2016) find the most common reasons given by campus leaders for rejecting proposals to divest from fossil fuels include 1) the costs associated with divestment, 2) the related need to meet fiduciary obligations, 3) that using endowments for political purposes is inappropriate, and 4) that divestment is ineffective.
5 Is Divestment Effective?
Whether or not divestment works depends on the goals and timeframe of its proponents. Overall, if the objective is to impose meaningful near-term financial losses on specific firms, industries, or countries through financial markets, then divestment by colleges and universities is unlikely to be effective. But, if the goal is to gain attention and legitimacy for a cause while stigmatizing the targeted entities through a symbolic action, then divestment can be effective. The outcomes accompanying increased saliency may result in divestment serving as a mechanism of agenda setting for policy change or for building a more cohesive social movement. Determining the effectiveness of divestment remains a challenging endeavor given the complex outcomes and varied viewpoints. Research on divestment effectiveness generally focuses on either direct (financial and economic) or indirect (social and policy) impacts and most recently focuses on fossil fuel and climate change divestment.
Based on a review of divestment outcomes, Ansar et al. (2013) conclude that the direct impact of higher education divestment on equity (stock prices) and debt are limited. Applying the lessons from past divestments to the fossil fuel industry, the authors note the capital available to divest is small relative to the size of the industry especially in highly-liquid markets. Indeed, a study of South African divestment in the 1980s found “little discernible effect either on the valuation of banks and corporations with South African operations or on the South African financial markets” (Teoh et al. 1999: 35). A more recent review of fossil fuel divestment reiterates the “limited financial effect” (Plantinga and Scholtens 2024) including little impact on equity prices. Researchers also find that divestment actions do not appear to harm endowment performance (Ryan and Marsicano 2020) despite general concerns about reduced diversification impacting investment returns.
While many college and university endowments are large by most standards, they aren’t necessarily big enough to move financial markets, especially since their investments are diversified to avoid holding concentrated positions in any single industry or company. For comparison, of the $7.6 trillion in U.S. controlled assets incorporating ESG criteria into investment decision-making at the start of 2022, only 8 % of the assets belonged to education institutions (US SIF 2022). An examination of divestment actions targeting human rights abuses in Sudan found limited effectiveness, since foreign firms proved immune from the U.S.-based divestment pressures and took financial advantage of the situation (Patey 2009).
Divestment represents one option for colleges and universities to signal disapproval using the power of the purse. Yet, when a college or university divests, it sells shares or debt-holdings of a targeted company or industry to a buyer who is likely less concerned about the social considerations. By exiting or giving up ownership, the investor forfeits the potentially more influential voice and influence of the college or university as an owner from any governance decisions like shareholder actions (Broccardo et al. 2022; Berk and van Binsbergen 2025). While maintaining ownership and taking a more active investor advocacy role is an alternative to divestment, that is an atypical role for college and university leaders and investment managers, although it represents a visible stance on an ethical or moral position of the institution. Related, divestment represents an indirect action toward a company or industry with investors and the market as intermediaries. While divestment can be part of a broader social movement, other responses like boycotts more directly impact the targeted groups (MacAskill 2015).
The literature suggests that the indirect impacts of divestment, specifically the stigmatization of the targeted companies or industry and driving public discourse about the issue, are more significant than the direct impacts of selling investments. Ansar et al. (2013: 65) capture this sentiment noting that divestment “adds to the uncertainty surrounding the future of a target company or industry.” Changes in the behavior of consumers, investors, and lenders due to this stigmatization may impact companies and industries in the long run. Divestment campaigns, and the associated attention, reportedly empower proponents by providing a tangible action on which to focus (Bergman 2018). The campus protests calling for South African divestment in response to Apartheid, and the resulting divestment actions, are often considered effective in indirect ways like influencing shifts in public opinion and helping to bring about legislative action, including the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, through an agenda setting role (Altbach and Cohen 1990). Overall, the general skepticism of the literature about meaningful direct impacts of divestment is countered by a recognition that divestment efforts can influence public perception and policy in meaningful ways.
6 Policy Review and Recommendations
Divestment, as a policy to align an organization’s investments with its values, presents college and university leaders with a conundrum. Calls for divestment challenge the traditional role of institutional investments. Such a change raises an uncomfortable tension between investment strategies focused on optimizing endowment performance and, alternatively, strategies structured to respond to moral and ethical considerations. Essentially, calls for divestment ask campus leaders to “put their money where their mouth is” for some of society’s most salient social issues over which they have little to no direct authority or control. The shift away from leveraging assets solely for investment purposes should be met with caution, especially with regard to legal restrictions and long-term financial consequences for endowment funds.
While campus divestment actions may have limited direct impact, campus leaders should still take divestment demands seriously. These actions raise awareness and confer legitimacy, helping to stigmatize the targeted behaviors and potentially drive broader change. From an institutional perspective, a decision to divest should consider the precedent being set, establish clear guardrails around the targeted activities, and create an implementation plan that minimizes costs and disruption to long-term investment strategies.
If a campus is willing to entertain divestment proposals, then the process and decision-making authorities should be clear to all campus communities considered to have legitimate standing. Improved transparency around endowment holdings and institutional investment practices may promote more informed dialogue around the justification for and impact of proposed divestments. Even though the presence of campus advisory committees has failed to insulate campuses from unrest related to divestment demands, these governance bodies invite collaboration and a venue for representation from key campus constituencies including students, alumni, staff, faculty, and administrators.
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