200 more students - impact on housing and dining?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Amherst College
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<p>So Amherst has announced its intention to grow its enrollment from about 1650 to 1850 (or thereabouts) over the next four years, as a way of mitigating the impact of the endowment losses and subsequent budget cuts. How and where will this greater number of students be housed? Are new dorms being built? Will upperclassmen be encouraged to move off campus? Will singles be turned into doubles? 10% growth requires some infrastructure, and I haven’t heard anything about that. </p>

<p>Also, what about Val? Any expansion planned, or more crowded conditions?</p>

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<p>I can’t cite chapter and verse, but Amherst had just finished construction of several new dorms with plans to take old buildings off-line or convert to other uses. So, right now, they have a surplus of dorm rooms.</p>

<p>Faculty is a different issue. They cut the number of non-tenure track faculty for this current year, will maintain those cuts next year, and cut a few more the following year. They had approved 18 new tenure track slots to match the first part of the expansion (before the market crash). They’ve now cancelled 15 of those 18 new tenure-track slots and will expand by just three.</p>

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<p>With regard to dorms, I heard the dean a couple of weeks ago that say that they had extra dorms just as you described.</p>

<p>With regard to faculty, I believe that the dean said that they were going to maintain (possibly increase) the tenure track hiring but were cutting back substantially visiting faculty.</p>

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<p>Shawbridge, were you in on that conference call with Deans Lieber and Hart? If I recall they did speak to increasing tenure track hiring. There’s a transcript of the call available, but I haven’t looked at it.</p>

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<p>They are playing a little game of semantics. They are increasing tenure track hiring – by three slots. What you have to go to the financial plan to see is that this is three of the eightteen slot increase that had been approved two years ago and that the other fifteen slots have been cancelled.</p>

<p>The exact number of cuts for non-tenure faculty is not clear. That is semantically stated as something like, “the cuts in place for this year will be continued next year”, but I haven’t seen how big the cuts for this year were.</p>

<p>Bottom line: Amherst will have 168 tenure track slots for the next three years, up from 165 slots.</p>

<p>Everybody is playing semantics games with these budget cuts. It’s like trying to parse admissions deans talking SAT stats! I’m not singling out Amherst. If you read the endowment reports, it’s like every college is on the shores of Lake Woobegon, where all endowments performed above average in the biggest market declines of a generation!</p>

<p>Read this 18 page PDF for Amherst’s new cuts (on top of this year’s cuts) bringing the total to $48 million cumulative over three years or a one year slash of $16 million or so by year three.</p>

<p><a href=“https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/119548/original/ABC%2BReport%2BFINAL.pdf[/url]”>https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/119548/original/ABC%2BReport%2BFINAL.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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Recommendation 3 in the PDF report indicates that funding for visiting profs should be cut by the equivalent of 3 positions between 2011 and 2012. </p>

<p>This cut is apparently projected to save $333,000. This number comes from the table on p. 13: it indicates that $605,000 will be saved on visiting faculty in 2011, and that the savings will increase to $938,000 in 2012. </p>

<p>So the implication is that each visiting prof costs ~ $111,000 per year (presumably this figure includes benefits as well as salary). Since the total savings on visiting faculty in 2012 are projected at $938,000, this seems to imply that there will be ~ 8.5 fewer visiting prof positions at that time. </p>

<p>So even if three tenure-track profs are added, there may be fewer faculty bodies on campus in 2012. Some fraction of the tenure-track faculty will be away from campus on leave every year (in fact, Recommendation 4 of the report leaves the funding for faculty leave untouched). But in the future, there may be fewer visiting profs available to stand in for them. In fact, the current Amherst [url=<a href=“https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/dean_faculty/fph/procedures/visitorrequest]webpage[/url”>https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/dean_faculty/fph/procedures/visitorrequest]webpage[/url</a>] on visiting faculty notes:

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<p>Thanks for the responses - you all seem well informed on the matter.
Are there any of the top-rank LACs (or national universities, for that matter),
that are NOT similarly affected by the financial crisis? Or are budgets cuts of similar magnitude going on just about everywhere? IMy daughter, a hs senior, is interested in the top LACs and prefers Amherst for various reasons, unrelated to their financial condition. Will it really be any different anywhere else?</p>

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<p>From a purely business/money perspective --from what I’ve read here over the last few months-- there are some that are in better financial shape than Amherst. (Interesteddad is a big supporter of Swarthmore --has a kid there-- and according to his posts, Swat is in much better shape, for example.)</p>

<p>How much is the difference in top LACs’ financial health going to really affect the quality of a student’s life or education?.. I don’t know, but I don’t expect it will be much, if at all.</p>

<p>Some of these LACs have so much in common that a kid thrilled to be at one might very likely to be as thrilled at several others. But in some cases there are distinctions that do really matter, and the culture of one of them will be a good fit, where the culture of the other will not be as much.</p>

<p>Why is your daughter drawn to Amherst? Depending on her reasons, the differences in overall financial conditions may not be relevant. If she’s looking for the LAC with the very, best cutting-edge science facilities right now, then the budget issues might matter since Amherst will not have its science building expanded and updated until some years from now. That’s just one example that’s been much discussed, but different students will have different issues.</p>

<p>My son is at Amherst and it’s everything he ever dreamed a school should be… for him. He likes the blend of high-achievement with well-roundedness, and non-competitive attitudes. He also enjoys sports and the general social climate of having the 4 other colleges in the consortium (although he hasn’t taken a class at any of them, not sure if he ever will), and the open curriculum.</p>

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<p>Yes. It’s quite different depending on the circumstances of the particular school. For example, a school that was already spending from the endowment at too high a rate (like Middlebury, Vassar, Smith) will have to make heavy cuts quickly to bring their endowment spending rates down. Smith, for example, is cutting 30 tenure-track faculty slots and 50% of their visiting professor slots over the next 3 years. Vassar is budgeted to spend 7.6% of its endowment this fiscal year (starting July 2009). That’s a very high, very scary number and you can expect severe cuts.</p>

<p>That problem does not apply to the very tippy-top endowment schools (in the LAC world: Pomona, Grinnell, Amherst, Swarthmore, Williams). As far as I know, they were all spending at low percentages during the boom years. Swarthmore was at 4.1% last year, 3.7% the year before. I can’t remember Amherst’s numbers, but they were similarly low. Williams was a bit higher, but still low. That gives these schools a bit of cushion, because they can increase their endowment spending by 25% (say from 4% to 5%) and offset a signficant decline in endowment. They still have to make some cuts, but they have the luxury of time. Back in March, when things looked really bleak, all of these schools made the easy cuts for the year staring July 2009 – salary freeze, restrictions on hiring, big cuts in capital matainence budgets (but all had such big reserve accounts and so little defered maintenance that this is not a big deal), and incremental budget cuts. Mostly low hanging fruit.</p>

<p>(More in the next message)</p>

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<p>OK, here’s where it gets tricky (and I am talking about the five biggest endowment LACs). I can’t speak for Pomona and Grinnell yet because I haven’t seen their year-end endowment numbers and enough info on budgets, so I’ll use examples from Williams, Amherst, Swat for now). The issues that differentiate them are: the amount of bond debt. the amount of variable interest bond debt (variable looks cheap now, but is poised to go thru the roof), and the amount of outstanding cash call commitments to private equity funds.</p>

<p>Swarthmore is in great shape: the highest per student endowment of the three, the lowest debt ($185 million), zero variable rate bond debt, and the lowest cash call commitments ($220 million). They have enough cash and bonds to cover three or four years of endowment spending, no liquidity issues.</p>

<p>Williams is in good shape. The lowest of the three in in terms of per student endowment, but manageable debt $265 million (about $100 millon variable), and manageable cash call commitments $270 million.</p>

<p>Amherst was much more aggressively invested in private equity and got burned badly. Their endowment took the biggest hit, they have over $500 million in outstanding cash calls, and had to issue a $100 million taxable bond issue in February because of liquidty issues, i.e. to raise cash to cover operating expenses and meet some cash calls without having to firesale every public stock in the endowment. Over 60% of their endowment is in non-liquid assets. They now have $320 million in debt, $200 million in variable rate. Thus, the $1.3 billion endowment is offset by $825 million in debt and cash call commitments. They will work it out. I’m not in any way suggesting they are at risk in any way. However, the debt and cash needed for cash calls means that Amherst is having to make all the cuts that Williams and Swarthmore are making, PLUS millions of dollars in additional cuts each year to account for the cost of added debt service.</p>

<p>The upshot is that Swarthmore added faculty this year – not as many as they had planned, but new tenure track slots in at least three departments. They now have more tenure track slots for 1500 students than Amherst is planning for 1800 students. Thanks to a stronger than expected endowment performance, their budgeted endowment spending this year will be 4.1%, amanzingly this is below their long range target. They are very relieved. Swarthmore now sees their long term budget-cutting challenge as an $8 million annual number to be achieved by the end of year three – about 7% of their annual operating budget. It will mean some real cuts, probably a small increase in students (they went up 16 this year), replacing all the computers on campus every four years instead of every three, and so on and so forth. All the academic programs, including the four years of Arabic they’ve phased in with two tenure-track and two non-tenure faculty, should remain intact. The only faculty cut has been moving a tenure-track slot from German to Chinese to address shifting demand. They are preparing a doomsday contingency of $15 million in cuts, but $8 million is the number they are planming to implement assuming the endowment doesn’t crater from here.</p>

<p>Amherst’s bogey for year three is $18 million in cuts (and they say there will have to be more to come in subsequent years). Obviously, finding $18 million in cuts is more painful than finding $8 million. That’s why they are growing enrollment, shrinking faculty, capping financial aid budgets, and already announcing 5% price increases for next year and the year after. So, you can count on Amherst’s Arabic program (one post-doc) to remain where it is and not catch up. The difference is really all in the cash needed to cover the additional debt service and cash calls to private equity and the fact that the lack of liquidity in the endowment is throwing off no cash. A year ago, I thought Amherst was the strongest of the three schools financially. Now, they are in the worst shape.</p>

<p>Without boring you with the details, Williams is pretty close to Swarthmore in terms of budget cutting. They are in good shape. Their endowment spending rate will be higher (5.5% I think), but otherwise the cuts should be similar. The only program being lost is the slot for their one-man band in linquistics. They denied tenure to the one guy and aren’t planning to replace him. A case where they either had to add a slot or get out of linquistics. because one guy is not sustainable. The biggest mess at Williams is that they built some new academic buildings on the assumption that the existing library practically touching them would be torn down. The new libary project has been stopped and I don’t see it starting again anytime soon (taking on $100 million in new debt is just not in the cards), so they’ve got kind of a kludge of buildings around the old library and an old building that had been gutted for renovation and is now in mothballs. They’ll manage. Both Williams and Swarthmore got their new science centers built</p>

<p>I know that Grinnell’s endowment got clobbered – maybe the biggest butt-kicking of all over the last two years. I think they were very heavy in some bank and financial stocks (ouch). They fell from #2 per student endowment to #5, I think. I haven’t seen signs of big budget cutting. They are very conservative as far as spending – low debt, paying cash for a lot of buildings, fairly low spending rates. I just don’t know where Pomona stands. They have been #1 in per student endowment for quite a few years, but they just aren’t saying anything since the year end. My hunch is that they are in relatively good shape, but it’s hard to say without any “updates on the economy” from them since last winter. The budget cuts for this year were pretty mild – about 2% below last year’s actuals.</p>

<p>Hope this helps. We’ll know a LOT more when the schools start releasing their year end audited financial reports from June 30th, 2009. The auditors were signing off on the fianncials in September and now the schools are adding their management discussion, which should be interesting to say the least. Amherst was first out of the blocks with the outlines of their three year budget cutting plan. Both Williams and Swarthmore have their committees wrapping up their 3 year plans for presentation over the next couple of months. Swat’s board approved the $8 million year three target last weekend. Amhert’s board approved their $18 million year three target in August. I haven’t seen confirmation of a final number from Williams. All three of these schools will still be better off in terms of where their budgets end up than the next tier down the endowment ladder. Smith’s cuts will hurt the quality of their core educational program. Has to when you go from 9-1 to 10-1 student/faculty ratio. Middlebury is making some hard cuts, too.</p>

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<p>They may not have an actual decline in faculty numbers because they had some unfilled tenure track slots going into this year. So, they will be increasing by three new tenure track slots plus some number of previously unfilled slots. Bottom line is that they faculty numbers may stay pretty much the same over the next three years. Of course, the student enrollement will be increasing by 180 to 200 students. With the current 8-1 ratio, they should be increasing the size of the faculty by 20 to 25 positions. That would, however, defeat the purpose of increasing enrollment to boost revenue.</p>

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<p>Interesting. I was on that phone call and do not have a transcript, but it did not give me the impression that they were only hiring three professors or were planning a significant drop in the student-teacher ratio that interesteddad describes. Indeed, they described an expansion in hiring. That could be relative to a shrinking base as interesteddad supposes. But, but I don’t have the data that interesteddad is drawing upon so I can’t really say.</p>

<p>wtidad, my son is a freshman at Amherst. He’s not likely to major in science. He’ll probably take organic chemistry because he likes it. Since he’s likely to study math and social science, the budget issues may not be noticeable. Each kid is different, but so far it is very good for his needs. Several good teachers (one so-so). Nice social environment. He likes sports but does not want to play on a varsity team . He’s found several of the clubs very welcoming. He’s found the teachers to be willing to meet. And, as a kid with learning disabilities, he’s found the school so far to be accommodating enthusiastically, as opposed to grudgingly. The dean of disabilities services has been proactive – reminding him to contact her and reminding me, over the summer, to make sure we had the software in place and coordinated with the school IT folks. His advisor actually suggested he take an easier first semester schedule than he had planned to learn how to be successful at Amherst (so far mid-term grades are good). His dorm is, by college standards, nearly palatial – more luxury hotel than college dorm.</p>

<p>I think his only complaints were that the food is not terrific and that he wasn’t finding like-minded cerebral kids in his dorms but he’s found like-minded kids in other dorms. We’ll wait to see how the budget issues affect the school.</p>

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<p>Here’s the relevant passage. Page 6 of the ABC Report PDF:</p>

<p><a href=“https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/119548/original/ABC%2BReport%2BFINAL.pdf[/url]”>https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/119548/original/ABC%2BReport%2BFINAL.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>There’s a section immediately following that on the visiting faculty numbers. The entire document is chock full of detailed information on the financial situation and the planned cuts. To their credit, Amherst has released a lot of information about their situation, as has Middlebury.</p>

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<p>Every LAC is going to face different concerns going forward as budget cuts are implemented. For Amherst, particular concerns might be as follows:</p>

<p>(1) Concerns about student-faculty ratio. The expansion of the student body by ~10% will apparently not be accompanied by a corresponding expansion of faculty, at least not for a while. It seems very possible that Amherst’s current 8:1 student faculty ratio (as per US News) may shift to 9:1, at least temporarily. Of course, this would still be a very respectable figure by LAC standards; however, it might not be at the top. </p>

<p>(2) Concerns about sciences. Enrollments and faculty numbers are relatively low, and the science center is old and in poor shape (the budget report notes that “systems in Merrill are failing and that renovation or replacement of the building may be necessary.”). Other top LACs updated their science facilities during the boom years; Amherst missed that opportunity, and it’s not clear when the next opportunity will arise. Again, sciences may still be very respectable by LAC standards, but they may not be at the top.</p>

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<p>Languages, especially the newer additions (Chinese, Japanese, Arabic) are an area prospects might want to look at closely. The number of years of instruction available, whether there are tenure-track faculty, etc. These are a pretty good indicator of resources invested in very popular new academic areas.</p>

<p>UMASS, of course, provides additional firepower in these areas – if you don’t choke on the thought of paying $50,000 a year for UMASS courses.</p>

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<p>So how do Midd’s and Smith’s financial situations compare to Amherst’s? I know Midd spent a lot on capital projects in the boom years and has the corresponding debt to show for it. Smith appears to be cutting 30 faculty in the next two years. Is this the same effect as Amherst’s minor faculty increase but significant enrollment increase as well?</p>

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<p>My daughter is drawn to Amherst for the usual reasons of perceived fit. I am concerned about its financial condition, but I’m not sure that she appreciates or cares about the difference between an endowment of $1.7 or $1.3 billion. Though of course, taking a haircut like like may indeed impact the student experience.
She is intellectually-minded but not a social outlier; not an athlete but likes to be around a wide range of people, including athletes (her brother is a football player at another NESCAC college). She’s also a top student and, like many AWS applicants, has HYP numbers but prefers an LAC.
She has visited Swarthmore and Williams and has friends at both. For her, Amherst seems to strike just the right balance. She found Swarthmore too preciously and self-consciously intellectual and too many of the students rather odd; “I don’t want to go to a college where I’m one of the coolest people there,” was her reaction; she liked Williams very much, particularly the tutorials, but didn’t like the one-horse town aspect, and the physical isolation. Amherst seemed to her to have a good mix of types, including the future-PhD type like herself (would be my guess) - without the Swarthmorean sense that if you’re not thinking deep thoughts 24/7, you don’t rate. Again, just her perceptions, but I must say that in visiting the schools with her, I shared them.</p>

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<p>That pretty much sums up how my kid chose Amherst. My son’s only regret is that 4 years is such a short time to get to be there.</p>

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<p>wtidad, my son is home for the long weekend, and has described both non-intellectual and intellectual pleasures. After reading some of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics for a course, he was a little bit perplexed by what seemed to be circular reasoning. He reported to me a 3 hour conversation with a junior who is concentrating on Aristotle and explained to him that (and why) in Aristotle’s logical system, a certain kind of circular reasoning was considered dispositive. But, he also has fun. Sports, games, parties.</p>