Public pensions and college endowments are some of the biggest investors in hedge funds, investment vehicles that have made their managers some of the wealthiest people in the world.Middlemen funnel this public money into the hedge funds, as do funds of funds. All of them collect fees.Pensions could have been better off investing in cash than in hedge funds, largely because of the high fees investors pay hedge fund managers. Hedge funds haven’t met the expectations for endowments over the past several years, either.