Most gifts that fund university endowments are earmarked by the donor for specific purposes. And for the money not earmarked, you're competing against all the other priorities, including making up for various unplanned shortfalls of Federal funding.

I ctrl-f'd Oregon State and didn't find it in the link you provided. I think you found UofO's endowment: University of Oregon - $1.651

Wikipedia states that OSU's endowment is $829.9 million (2023).[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_State_University

You’re right, I mixed them up! Thanks for correcting me on that.

people have started using the word "endowment" against colleges like it's a term for slush fund.

indeed they have. In reality they're like complicated heterogeneous investment funds with untold numbers of varying restrictions governing them.

They're not just a pile of gold coins in the university presidents basement.

Indeed. Everything is earmarked, occasionally even earmarked in a way that the university cannot use the at all (e.g. something like a donation "to pay for an earnest white Christian man to teach phrenology").

The Foundation itself has nearly $1b in assets. The problem with these foundations is they're often streched across the entire university. Which means the foundation behind OSL is also the foundation behind intercollegiate athletics and tons of other completely unrelated programs.

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/936...