According to a new survey, the investment portfolios of colleges, universities, and other educational institutions rebounded in 2004 after several years of losses or meager gains, the Associated Press reports

The more than seven hundred endowments surveyed by the Commonfund Institute, a financial research firm based in Wilton, Connecticut, earned an average of 14.7 percent in the twelve months ending June 30, compared to an average gain of 3.1 percent in 2003 and losses in the two years prior to that. Because most educational nonprofits use about 5 percent of their assets annually to support operations, many institutional endowments had spent several years treading water, at best.

"It certainly is a helpful rebound," said Commonfund executive director John Griswold. "It doesn't put nonprofits out of the woods yet because their budgets were severely tested and squeezed during the bear market."

Overall the survey revealed few dramatic changes in how nonprofits are investing their money. Average allocations to domestic stocks (31 percent), fixed income (15 percent), international stocks (16 percent), and cash (4 percent) were all within a few percentage points of the figures in last year's survey. However, the survey found that the best-performing endowments generally have been shifting money away from hedge funds and into investments such as real estate and energy, suggesting that the "smart money" may be looking elsewhere now that hedge funds have become trendy. The survey also found that institutional money managers do not expect to do as well in fiscal 2005 as they did in 2004.