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February 25, 2010
If it's Thursday, my meeting must be about the Budget.
I go to too many meetings this semester - and Thursday is the depressing one. I ended up on the president's Budget Advisory Task Force to talk about ways in which we might work ourselves through the "current situation" without losing our minds, our staff, and whatever makes us our own snowflake of a Small Liberal Arts College.*
In case you, dear reader, live on another planet and haven't noticed, here's a nice summary with a local angle on what the fiscal crisis has done to higher education giving.
A recent report by the Council for Aid to Education shows how, nationwide, colleges have also been hurt by an almost 12 percent drop in donations last fiscal year, which for most colleges ended June 30.Alumni and other individuals, corporations and foundations tightened their purse strings.
The 20 colleges receiving the most donations got a total of $7.3 billion -- 13 percent less than the top 20 reported the previous year.
No local college made the latest list, which Stanford University headed by raising $640 million.
Locally, the declines are more striking. The $120.8 million in donations received by 11 Rochester-area colleges for fiscal 2009 was 29 percent less than the $169.3 million recorded in fiscal 2008.
Suffering the biggest drop was the University of Rochester, which saw its contributions fall from almost $101 million in fiscal 2008 to about $64 million in fiscal 2009.
Alumni watching their pocketbooks were the biggest factor in the almost $7 million drop in donations received last fiscal year by Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva. That was the second-largest local dollar decline.
The news brightens by the end of the article: "But there is cause for optimism -- giving to Hobart and William Smith Colleges is 27 percent higher than a year ago." At the meeting today I'm going to be asking what that 27% is - 27% more money? 27% more gifts?
I have to admit that the mood has brightened as the meetings have gone on; there is indeed a feeling of milder pessimism (it's not really optimism - things are still hard!) in the room than when we started meeting, and markers like that 27% help. But really - if you know of any smart rich kids, send them my way. Admissions are the make or break in this game.
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*Make that TWO smaller, coordinate liberal arts collegeS, thank you very much. Hobart AND William Smith. We get touchy about that here. Remember that story about our Admissions folks sending out 3-d glasses? Go back and read the comments. There are even faculty who see the increasing use of our initials (HWS) instead of our full name as a devious way of flattening difference.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at February 25, 2010 8:01 AM
Comments
7 million drop? We don't raise that much in a year. Can you loan us a couple of development officers?
Posted by: Lucius Septimius at February 25, 2010 9:02 AM