As Harvard University garners national attention for its announcement of record-breaking endowment figures, Penn State's endowment totals continue to rise minimally.

Penn State's total endowments and similar funds climbed from $1.11 billion in June 2004 to $1.231 billion in June 2005, a "satisfactory" rise, Advancement Projects Director Mike Bezilla said.

"The increase comes from mainly two things -- more endowed gifts and investment returns," Bezilla said.

Harvard spokesman Al Powell said the university had collected $25.9 billion in endowments as of June 2005, which have assisted in maintaining Harvard's title of the wealthiest university in the world.

Penn State Executive Investment Management Director David Branigan said it is difficult to draw comparisons to the endowment figures of Penn State to those of a private institution like Harvard.

"The really sophisticated, large, private institutions have endowments in their lifeblood," Branigan said. "They don't have any state support like we do."

Penn State spokesman Bill Mahon said it is illogical to apply the same standards to Penn State because Harvard is older than Penn State.

"They've had a couple hundred years head start on us," Mahon said.

Bezilla added that Penn State has only been actively collecting endowments since the late 1980s.

Before the conscious push for endowments, Penn State gathered between $20 million to $40 million, Branigan said, adding that roughly 60 percent of the more than 4,000 named endowment funds support some form of student aid.

To more accurately draw comparisons between universities, a peer benchmark group was compiled about five years ago, Branigan said.

The group, composed of the Big Ten universities and eight other universities, are of similar size and management.

Branigan said Penn State ranks "well above" the median investment return, which is a part of the total endowments.

"We've improved substantially in this peer group," Branigan said. "There is a pretty sizable jump within the last year."

In another survey unrelated to the peer benchmark group, The Chronicle of Higher Education compared universities solely within the Big Ten, Bezilla said.

Penn State was listed sixth, while the University of Michigan ranked first with roughly $4.2 billion in endowments. The University of Minnesota and Ohio State University had $1.5 billion each.

Nationally, the University of Texas lists the highest endowment total for a public university, at $10.3 billion.

Branigan said that although endowment funds fluctuate annually, the goal is to increase stability and predictability.

"Some years we will have good investment returns and others not," he said.

An example of these endowment variances was the recent stipend cuts for student group leaders. As a direct result of decreases in revenue from parking fees and two endowment funds, stipends for group leaders is now limited to $1,000 per student.

Branigan said once endowment money is dispersed, it is up to the individual groups on the process of distributing the funds.