| In a "letter to the community," today, Harvard President Drew Faust confirmed the university's earlier estimate that its endowment will shrink 30%, "before subtracting the additional $1.4 billion that will go toward current operations." Worse, she writes, "The current yearly endowment distribution -- the dollars we take out of the endowment to support activities across the University -- is approximately 50% higher than it was when the endowment was last at the value we expect as of next June 30."
The school will hold faculty and some staff salaries flat next year, institute voluntary retirement for about 1,600, and reconsider, "the pace and scale of our physical expansion in Allston," among other steps. More here. I wonder if that will save $450 or so million [hat tip to Marcus for correcting the numbers] they need to cut to bring endowment spending back in line with earlier disbursement rates. Tough times.
Amusingly, Faust wrote that, "It was striking to watch an inauguration in which three Harvard graduates -- the President, the First Lady, and the Chief Justice of the United States -- stood together to mark an historic transition in our nation's leadership." She neglected, somehow, to add that the outgoing President was also a Harvard graduate. |
