And also that Harvard has demonstrated the ability to manage its endowment well.

They lost 8 billion of it in 2008.

Harvard's endowment has performed exceptionally well. Here’s the data: http://www.hmc.harvard.edu/docs/Final_Annual_Report_2014.pdf

Endowments are managed with long-term time horizons. Therefore, cherry picking one year of endowment performance and generalizing investment skill from it is misleading and inaccurate.

Also, percentage gains and losses are a more appropriate metric to use when comparing investment skill between managers. Otherwise, a large endowment will seem riskier than a small one, even if the two endowment allocations are identical.