After making significant cuts to operating budgets last winter, Dartmouth's peer institutions have again embarked on cost cutting this fall in light of endowment returns that continue to drop, while attempting to maintain financial aid programs and protect the quality of the student experience.
"Colleges are trying as much as possible to preserve faculty and support services for students, and are looking for inefficiencies in the way they deliver non-academic services," Cornell Higher Education Research Institute director Ronald Ehrenberg said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "The biggest inefficiencies will depend on each college. Each college has to take a very careful look at what they are doing."
Anna MacLachlan, senior researcher for the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley, said the way cuts are made is critical for morale. MacLachlan argued that colleges should reduce the salaries of top administrators.
Dartmouth instituted a $72-million budget reduction last winter for the 2009 and 2010 fiscal years combined, implementing a hiring freezes and cutting staff to reduce operating expenditures, protecting most faculty jobs. The College laid off 60 non-faculty employees, while an additional 28 had their hours reduced, The Dartmouth previously reported.
The College will now institute a second round of layoffs as part of impending budget cuts announced on Saturday, College President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement. It is not yet clear whether faculty will be exempt from those layoffs.
Princeton University announced in April that it would work to cut $170 million from its operating budget over two years. After a 23.7 percent drop in its endowment, the university moved to make more cuts this fall by reducing the hours of its campus center, among other initiatives. Princeton laid off 43 employees in October and reduced the hours of 18 more, according to The Daily Princetonian, while 145 employees opted into a voluntary early retirement program.
Yale University is asking departments to implement a 5 percent in expense reductions this year in all non-personnel spending, in addition to the 7.5 percent in cuts already made in personnel and non-personnel spending. Yale's budget deficit is projected to grow to $150 million each year from the 2010 fiscal year through the 2013 fiscal year.
Harvard University's arts and sciences division has cut about $75 million from its 2010 fiscal year budget in recent months and is planning more reductions. Harvard laid off 250 staff members this past summer, according to The Harvard Crimson.
Last year, Brown University reduced its staff by 67 people, The Brown Daily Herald reported.
Cornell University also offered voluntary early-retirement incentives to about 1,300 employees last winter, according to The Cornell Daily Sun. The university has not announced any layoffs so far. Columbia University has not fired employees either, but staff positions have been left vacant to reduce spending, The Columbia Spectator reported.
Despite budgetary deficits, Dartmouth and its peer institutions have so far not compromised their financial aid programs.
At Yale, financial aid is the only expenditure that is immune to budget cuts, the Yale Daily News has reported. Similarly, Harvard increased financial aid to $145 million this year from $136 million last year despite economic challenges, according to The Harvard Crimson.
Financial aid remains a top priority for Stanford, which is facing a significant funding shortfall after a recent expansion and a 26-percent endowment loss, The Stanford Daily reported.
Kim, in an interview with The Dartmouth this weekend, emphasized that Dartmouth's commitment to need-blind admissions will remain unchanged. The financial aid program, however, which was unaffected by the previous budget reduction, will be examined and may be altered to make it more efficient, Kim said.
