Private colleges and universities rely on money contributed by individuals and corporations for their operating expenses. Much of this money is put into a fund called an endowment, and the college spends only the interest earned by the fund. A recent survey of eight private colleges in the United States revealed the following endowments (in millions of dollars): 74.8, 53.3, 242.2,499.2, 124.7, 151.2, 92.7, and 211.4. What value will be used as the point estimate for the

Question

Private colleges and universities rely on money contributed by individuals and corporations for their operating expenses. Much of this money is put into a fund called an endowment, and the college spends only the interest earned by the fund. A recent survey of eight private colleges in the United States revealed the following endowments (in millions of dollars): 74.8, 53.3, 242.2,499.2, 124.7, 151.2, 92.7, and 211.4. What value will be used as the point estimate for the
mean endowment of all private colleges in the United States?

PsyDAG · Answer

Do you want the mean or the median? If it is a relatively normal distribution, then use the mean. If not (and it seems to be positively skewed), you would want to use the median. In this case, it would be the of the two most central scores in terms of value.

PsyDAG · Answer

...the mean of the two most central scores in terms of value.