Sitting on top of a $13 billion endowment and eyeing a healthy economy, Harvard University officials have announced the university will boost, by at least 20 percent, the amount it uses from the endowment each year for operating costs, the Associated Press reports.

For Harvard, this means an extra $90 million to $100 million per year added to the budget, for a total of about $500 million per year from endowment funds. The increase will mean up to 26 percent of Harvard's 1999-2000 budget will come from its endowment, the university reports.

For other universities across the country, it means they also may consider using more from their endowments, the AP reports.

Despite stock fluctuations, Harvard's endowment has averaged a nearly 20 percent annual return over the last five years. The school has an annual operating budget of about $1.7 billion. School officials reported 23 percent of its current operating budget came from endowment funds.

About four percent of most American university annual budgets come from endowments, the AP reports.

School officials have said the extra funds will go to a variety of operations, including adding new instructors, adding new information technologies, lowering class sizes, preserving book and other archival material, and boosting its undergraduate and professional schools.

An estimated 10 percent of the new funds will go to aid financially needy students, but Harvard's annual cost of $31,132 for tuition and other expenses will not decrease, the AP reports.