Ivies Optimistic About Endowments, Financial Aid Despite Economic Crisis

In the same week that Columbia president Lee Bollinger addressed the economic crisis in a campus-wide e-mail, several Ivy League peers released statements regarding their own institutions’ financial futures in light of the bleak economic outlook.

After September’s Wall Street collapse, there has been growing anxiety among universities whose budgets rely partially on the success of the endowment investments.

In Monday’s e-mail, Bollinger said that Columbia would take steps to continue with its current fundraising campaign and maintain fiscal responsibility.

The presidents of Harvard and Princeton—whose endowments are at least twice that of Columbia’s—expressed similar sentiments earlier this week.

“We must, even in these difficult times, keep our eye on this priority and make choices that continue to enable us to advance our highest priorities university-wide and in individual schools,” Harvard president Drew Faust was quoted as saying in the Harvard Crimson.

Faust explained that while the financial crisis would undoubtedly affect the university’s $36.9 billion endowment, she aimed to shore up its policy of need-blind admissions while avoiding tuition hikes.

But Princeton president Shirley Tilghman said Princeton would weather the changes given its financial accountability.

Princeton is “in a position where we can survive this much better than most universities,” she told the Daily Princetonian.

Yet voicing concerns reminiscent of Bollinger’s, Tilghman spoke of the importance of fiscal responsibility in the coming years, mentioning that a prolonged economic downturn could damage the university’s spending capabilities.

“If it’s not a 12-month, 18-month recession, but ... a three-year depression, we will have to entertain changes in the way we do business,” she said.

Neither Princeton nor Harvard has instituted economic reforms yet, though Harvard is reportedly reconsidering its expansion program into a neighboring Cambridge suburb.

Other Ivies, on the other hand, have seen the need to respond more immediately to economic pressures. Cornell has enacted a freeze on construction and a hiring due to last through March, and Brown announced early in November that it will issue a suspension of new hires until January in an attempt to cut back unnecessary spending.

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