Yale University cut several components of its benefits packages for managerial and professional staff while adding new short-term disability coverage, the Yale Daily News reported Thursday. Employees told the Yale Daily News they supported the new disability coverage and said that the benefit cuts were undesirable, but they preferred them to additional layoffs. Because Yale's benefits have typically been considered among the most generous in the Ivy League, the changes represent a major shift in Yale's employee benefits package, according to the Daily News. Effective July 1, staff will receive 24 combined vacation and personal days annually rather than the current total of 28 and will receive 6 sick days instead of 12. Bonuses in vacation time will be phased out and staff will be restricted in the amount of vacation days that they can carry over from year to year. The changes will save "a few million" dollars, Yale President Richard Levin told the Daily News.
Baker University in Kansas announced plans to eliminate five major areas of study this fall, the Lawrence Journal-World reported Wednesday. The elimination of the political science, molecular bioscience, wildlife biology, computer information systems and physical science majors will save the university about $400,000 because of the relocation of seven professors into new positions and the retirement of four others. The decision will affect roughly 30 non-freshman students. Many of the classes in these majors will still be taught, according to the Lawrence Journal-World.
The $2.4 billion infusion of federal stimulus money into higher education institutions has delayed significant financial losses among colleges and universities, according to a report released on Thursday by the State Higher Education Executive Officers, Inside Higher Ed reported Thursday. The report notes that colleges and universities will probably feel the full impact of the economic downturn in 2010 and 2011. A 3.4 percent increase in student enrollment at public institutions from 2008 to 2009 caused difficulties for institutions faced with declining state funds, which will only become worse without federal stimulus money to fill the gap, the report found. The data indicates that states should save in strong economic times to prepare for recessions, but states have not historically been inclined to do so, SHEEO President Paul Lingenfelter told Inside Higher Ed.
