College endowments earned an average return of minus-3 percent for the 2008 fiscal year and an estimated minus-22.5 percent in the five months after that, two new reports show. More than a quarter of all institutions said they plan to draw less money from their endowment this year than they had expected to spend. After a half-decade of soaring returns, it is the first time endowment investments lost money since the early 2000s, when, in the wake of the collapsing technology bubble and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, endowments returned a minus-3.6 percent in 2001 and minus-6 percent in 2002. The only category of institutions that managed to eke out an average positive return in the 2008 fiscal year were the 77 with endowments worth more than $1-billion. Even their return declined significantly from that posted a year earlier. The investment declines are hardly a surprise. For the last year, markets have been roiled by a global recession, a credit crisis of unprecedented proportions, and the collapse and near-collapse of several major international banks. However, endowments are designed to be long-term investments and the diversification that colleges have been pursuing over the past several years, including some contrarian tactics, is expected by many to help them weather the current difficult market.