Yale University faculty retirement funds have been hit hard by the economic recession, according to the Yale Daily News. Some Yale professors are likely to delay their retirement, as each additional year of employment increases the amount invested in retirement funds, which may upset the balance of faculty turnover, the Daily News reported. Yale administrators are attempting to develop retirement incentives to avoid this problem. Yale has lost 25 percent of its endowment due to the economic crisis, but faculty retirement funds have decreased significantly, which may make convincing faculty members to retire in a timely manner more difficult, the Daily News reported.
Former U.S. Secretary of Education Sen. Lamar Alexander,
R-Tenn., called for higher-education leaders to restrain spending in order to help convince Congress to support aid for academia in a speech before the American Council on Education on Monday, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. Aid is too often accompanied by an increase in costs, he said. The senator, who is also the former president of the University of Tennessee, suggested that colleges and universities should create new initiatives to cut costs, including three-year bachelor's degree programs and the option of tuition-free enrollment at community colleges, according to The Chronicle.
The job market is far less welcoming for recent college
graduates then it was before the economic crisis, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. On-campus corporate recruiting fell five percent this year at New York University, which typically sends many graduates into the financial sector. Many institutions have also reported increased student attendance at career center information sessions. In a survey of 50 colleges and universities nationwide, the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that more than half of the institutions experienced an influx in "career-center traffic," in addition to a decrease in the number of companies participating in campus job fairs.
