The University of Pennsylvania announced last week that it will raise the cost of tuition for undergraduate students by 3.75 percent, according to university President Amy Gutmann. Penn, whose endowment lost 19 percent in the second half of 2008, will also increase funding for financial aid by 15 percent, Bloomberg reported. Penn will cut its budget by $57.7 million, and some divisions of the university, including the Wharton School of Business, will cut back on capital spending, according to the announcement. Dartmouth similarly increased its tuition by 4.8 percent and its financial aid by 13 percent last month.
Cornell University will offer a retirement incentive plan to 1,300 non-faculty staff members, Bloomberg reported on Feb. 27. The plan, which applies to employees 55 or older who have worked for the university for at least 10 years, is similar to a plan unveiled at Dartmouth in December 2008. Cornell implemented the incentive plan, along with other budget cutting initiatives, after the university's endowment saw a 27-percent decline during the second half of 2008. Cornell will temporarily halt searches for new faculty, according to Bloomberg, and will lay off 68 employees.
Yale University announced last week that it may lay off as many as 300 employees, offering doubled severance pay to employees fired within the next six months, according to the Yale Daily News. The university has asked department managers to eliminate overtime and fire part time workers and contractors to minimize the number of full-time employees who must be laid off, the Yale Daily News reported. Vice president for human resources and administration Michael Peel said in a letter to university managers that administrators are hoping to eliminate excess work, not only jobs, according to the Yale Daily News. Peel called for managers to eliminate "low-value work" and positions. The university, which suffered a 25-percent drop in its endowment last year, does not expect to see immediate economic gains from the layoffs, Provost Peter Salovey told the Yale Daily News.
