"For years, top university endowments at Harvard, Yale and Princeton were the envy of the investment world, thanks to the outsized returns they generated from significant investments in nontraditional assets such as private equity, real estate, hedge funds and commodities, and low exposure to U.S. stocks and bonds," Barron's reports. "Now that widely imitated asset- allocation strategy, dubbed the Yale model because of the enormous success of the Yale endowment under the 24-year leadership of David Swensen, is facing its sternest test amid the bear market of the past 12 months. Harvard and Princeton are assuming their endowments fell about 30% for the fiscal year ending June 30, while Yale is projecting a decline of 25%. The outlook is challenging for the big Ivy League endowments because many of their investments are in illiquid private- equity and real-estate funds or commodity-related assets such as timberland, whose estimated value might not reflect today's steeply discounted market prices. Yale and Princeton, for instance, have invested roughly half their endowment assets in private-equity deals, real estate and commodities, a far cry from the 65%-to-35% blend of stocks and bonds favored by many individuals."