No new plans for University budget cuts

Although Yale University, Brown University and Dartmouth College have announced potential budget cutbacks in the past week, Penn has not announced any new plans.

“Many of the peers borrowed taxable funds to address the liquidity challenges. This in part is contributing to the budget challenges faced by our peer group,” Executive Vice President Craig Carnaroli wrote in a statement.

“We have differed from some of our peers in that Penn’s endowment lost the least proportionally of its peers in [Fiscal Year] 2009, on top of the fact that we are less endowment dependent than our peers,” he explained, noting that only 9 percent of Penn’s operating budget comes from the endowment.

In addition to looking for new revenue sources, the salaries of officers and deans will be frozen according to a recent Yale University-wide e-mail from Yale President Richard Levin and Provost Peter Salovey.

Only two percent of Yale faculty and professional staff will receive salary increases, according to the e-mail.

Furthermore, the number of graduate students admitted will be reduced by 10 to 15 percent.

Brown University is considering $30 million in budget cuts, which will result in staff reductions, according to a statement by the university.

Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ deficit has been reduced to $80 million, which FAS Dean Michael Smith credited at a faculty meeting last week to donations, improvements in the international financial market and cost-cutting measures, according to the Harvard Crimson.

Dartmouth announced on Monday that it has eliminated its “No-Loan” program and will restore loans to financial aid packages for students whose family income is more than $75,000, according to a statement by Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim. The class of 2015 will be the first one affected by the new policy.

Middle-income students applying to elite schools will be most affected by the budget cuts, San Diego College Navigators consultant Loveena Bhagawat predicted.

She explained that low-income students often receive full financial aid, and wealthy students are able to weather increases in tuition — but middle-income students may have to increase their family’s contribution to their tuition as a result of these budget adjustments.

However, she believes elite schools will continue to “meet the needs of [low-income] students because these are students that they definitely want on their campus.”

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