The Chronicle reporters and editors analyze the fallout from the money crisis. Short version:
WINNERS
- Colleges with big endowments, low debt, and strong name brands
- Community colleges, affordable public colleges that can handle the demand, and distance-education programs
- Deep-pocket institutions that can expand programs, poach faculty members, or buy up stocks on the cheap
- Colleges that focus on doing a few things well rather than being everything to everyone
- Institutions with diverse donor pools or donors who can make money in this market
- Big energy-producing states—Alaska, Colorado, Texas, Wyoming—that are benefiting from the high price of coal, oil, and natural gas
LOSERS
- Middle-class families
- Colleges that rely on donor money for student aid
- High-priced, tuition-dependent private colleges
- Colleges that are behind schedule on projects and maintenance
- Fund-raising programs heavily dependent on Wall Street
- States slammed by the housing slump—Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada
When the stock market plunged 778 points last week, losing almost 9 percent of its value in one day, higher education responded in an uncharacteristic way: It began to buckle…
Well-off private universities with large endowments—and public universities in energy-rich states with strong balance sheets—are on the plus side. They will weather the financial turmoil and may even improve their standing, poaching faculty members from universities that are struggling and using their stability to attract donors who do have money to give. But small, less-selective private institutions that are dependent on tuition, and public universities in states where the financial outlook is already grim can expect to suffer. Some may even be forced to shut their doors. State legislators and education leaders in Michigan, for example, have already discussed the possibility—however remote—of closing a campus within the public higher-education system…
Economic instability is also making it more difficult for families to afford college. That, combined with the shrinking availability of loans and the prospect that the economic downturn may lead to increases in tuition next year, may push some students out of the equation.
One affluent institution that may (or may not!) have to dip into its endowment had an award show last night. Amid great foolishness and fanfare the Annals of Improbable Research produced the 18th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony at Harvard University.
Among others, awards were given “for adopting the legal principle that plants have dignity,” “for discovering that the fleas that live on a dog can jump higher than the fleas that live on a cat,” and to a professor who is a favorite of mine, Dan Arielly of Duke University, “for demonstrating that high-priced fake medicine is more effective than low-priced fake medicine.”