Mississippi College Endowment

Mississippi College Endowment

Founded in 1826, Mississippi College is a private university in Clinton, Mississippi, governed by a board of trustees elected by the Mississippi Baptist Convention. The endowment is managed through the Mississippi College Foundation, where Katrina Pace serves as CEO. President Blake Thompson and Provost Mike Highfield round out the senior leadership team overseeing the institution's financial resources. The endowment maintains a hybrid investment approach. Real-asset holdings are substantial and geographically concentrated: they include the Gore Arts Complex, the Mississippi College School of Law building in Jackson, and the Rising Spring mixed-use development at I-20 and U.S. Highway 80. On the venture side, the fund pursues direct investments, secondaries, and co-investments. The MC Student Investment Fund gives undergraduates hands-on exposure to portfolio management under faculty supervision. With an estimated $91 million in assets, the fund operates solely from its Clinton, Mississippi, campus. The institution does not publish team headcount or discrete deployment figures, but its operational footprint extends through affiliation with vehicles like the Mississippi Baptist Foundation Equity Fund and Fixed Income Fund. The endowment's structure is unusual among small private colleges: it mixes operating real estate, a student-run fund, and direct venture exposure under a single foundation. This architecture concentrates investment decision-making in the foundation's leadership, giving the university a more active capital-allocation stance than peer endowments that rely almost exclusively on external managers.