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University pension-scheme members have been told that their fund has lost ?30,000 per member since 2000, a total loss of ?6 billion. Peter Moon, chief investment officer at the Universities' Superannuation Scheme, said there had been a drop in the fund from the height of the bull market to the bottom of the bear market. "Over the longer ten-year period to 31 December 2002, the fund has returned 7.1 per cent a year, above both average earnings increases of 4.1 per cent a year and the retail price index of 2.5 per cent, and exceeding the assumptions used in the actuarial valuation of the scheme." USS is a defined benefit scheme that protects individual members' pensions rights from any losses.