Colleges and universities have been questioned regarding their use of endowments, with critics maintaining that these assets have significance beyond the financial benefits they provide and suggesting that institutions hoard endowment to attain unnecessary intangibles such as prestige. A few scholars have attempted to study the purposes of endowment, but most of them have taken an anecdotal approach and focused on the wealthiest institutions, skewing our perceptions. This paper takes a different approach, utilizing regression analysis with data from 475 private, four-year higher education institutions with varying levels of endowment. As a result, it offers a broader outlook on whether these assets offer financial as well as non-financial benefits by evaluating endowment's impact on such things as student and faculty quality, donor giving, and institutional prestige. By employing Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as a metaphor, this research develops a framework that blends the financial and non-financial benefits of endowment in such a manner that a broader strategic perspective of endowment emerges. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]