The California State Teachers’ Retirement System announced Tuesday that the pension fund earned a 13.9% net return on its investment portfolio during the 2025-26 fiscal year—the one-year period ending June 30.
Assets managed by CalSTRS rose to $415.4 billion at the end of the fiscal year.
The teachers’ retirement fund outperformed its total fund benchmark by 0.4 percentage points, with all asset classes except real estate and collaborative strategies outperforming their respective benchmarks.
The fund requires a 7% average return to meet its pension obligations. Over the past five-, 10-, 20- and 30-year periods, CalSTRS reported annualized returns of 7%, 9.4%, 7.5% and 7.8%, respectively.
The portfolio’s global equities returned 25.1%, followed by risk mitigation strategies (16.8%), inflation-sensitive assets (13.3%), private equity (7.5%), fixed income (4.4%), collaborative strategies (2.8%) and real estate (0.2%).
“While we’re pleased with this year’s return, we remain focused on creating consistent, decades-long growth,” said CalSTRS CIO Scott Chan in a statement. “Our ability to attain returns above 7% over the long term in an increasingly complex market demonstrates the success of our diversified investment approach, risk management and ability to outperform our policy benchmark.”
CalSTRS allocates 43.5% of its assets to global equities, 13.58% to private equity, 12.3% to fixed income, 11.88% to real estate, 8.52% to risk-mitigating strategies, 7.03% to inflation-sensitive assets, 1.9% to collaborative strategies and 1.33% to strategic overlay and cash.
CalSTRS’ funded status rose to 79.3% at the end of the 2024-25 fiscal year, up from 62.6% in 2016-17. The pension fund will provide an updated funding ratio for the most recent fiscal year in May 2027, following an actuarial review of its defined benefit program.
“This strong return reflects the dedication and skill of our investments team and everyone at CalSTRS who supports their work,” CalSTRS CEO Cassandra Lichnock said in a statement. “This is a significant step toward achieving full funding, which is vitally important to fulfilling our mission to secure the financial future of California’s public school educators and their beneficiaries.”
CalSTRS manages retirement assets for more than 1 million beneficiaries—primarily California-based educators.
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