Harvard Clipping Coupons

Harvard University is cutting its budget due to hard times in its endowment investment returns. This could cripple the potential of the school being the richest in the world academic higher education facility. Students will have to bring their own Cross pens, or dare I say supply their own Neiman Marcus stationary for class notes.

Maybe we should all petition the new President Elect Barack Obama for a bailout plan for the gold mine mother load alma mata of the future President. Why not, Bush gave tax breaks to oil companies making billions per quarter? Over at Reuters they have this to say on Harvard and their budget cuts…

Harvard freezes salaries as recession bites
Tue Dec 9, 2008 2:02pm EST

By Jason Szep

BOSTON (Reuters) - Harvard University's largest faculty plans to freeze salaries for professors and non-union staff next year as the world's richest university grapples with a funding shortfall brought on by the financial crisis.

A letter from deans of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to department heads said at least $105 million must be cut from the budget, which is strained by a projected 30 percent drop in the Ivy League school's endowment in the year to June 30.

Snippet… Don’t cry yet, it gets better

Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences will also postpone almost all current tenure-track and tenured searches, the letter said, a setback for one of the world's most coveted academic prizes that confer a job for life.

Searches would resume when the financial situation turns around, the letter said.

Harvard reported on December 2 that its endowment had lost 22 percent, or $8 billion, in the last four months and was on track for its worst returns in 40 years.

The university relies on its endowment to cover about 35 percent of its operating budget. - Reuters

I’m not feeling we need a bailout for Harvard just yet. If they could lose $8 Billion in investments then I would not suggest sending your children there for an economics education. When it cost on average $35,000 tuition alone per year for that degree from Harvard I’m not to sympathetic. Then you have to consider that the school has an endowment that is in the tens of billions of dollars. The entire university could run on the endowment alone for decades. Tuition free as well! The Boston Globe listed the balance of the endowment at $34 Billion in January of 2008.

Harvard is an elite educational institution and they earned the right to that title. They give a great education and having Harvard on your diploma is the gold standard in education and when searching for future employers. However, ten or more years ago I watched a piece on the television where they were building a very small guard post on the campus. They spent $250,000 for the damn thing. You could buy the same structure at Home Depot for $1000 or less. Book smart, money stupid.

Hold the tissues, don’t grab the check book for a charitable donation to Harvard just yet. Do however feel free to donate to a much more worthy charity like the Salvation Army or your local homeless shelter.

Papamoka