Harvard University’s endowment, the world’s largest college fund, gained between 7% and 9% in the past year as investments in hedge funds and commodities softened the blow from falling stocks, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

The $34.9 billion fund’s performance in the fiscal year ended June 30 is preliminary, said the person, who asked not to be identified because Harvard won’t disclose final returns until next month. A spokesman for Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., John Longbrake, declined to comment on the figures, which were reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal.

The university uses a mix of external and in-house money managers, and its size and cachet give the endowment access to top talent. American endowments lost an average of 3.1% in the period, according to data compiled by Northern Trust Corp., the Chicago-based custody bank. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, the benchmark for big American stocks, fell 15%.

“They would be the top performer,” an investment risk and analytical services product manager at Northern Trust, whose database of 87 foundations and endowments doesn’t include Harvard’s, Craig Tome, said.

Harvard’s fund was led for half the fiscal year by Mohamed El-Erian, 49, who returned to Newport Beach, Calif.-based Pacific Investment Management Co. as co-chief executive officer in December after less than two years on the job. The fund was overseen on an interim basis by a former vice chairman of New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Robert Kaplan, 51.

The former chief investment officer at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, Jane Mendillo, 49, took over last month as chief of Harvard Management Co., which manages the endowment.