<p>Losses to Brown’s endowment have finally been announced:</p>
<p>[Endowment</a> stands to lose $800m - Campus News](<a href=“http://media.www.browndailyherald.com/media/storage/paper472/news/2009/01/28/CampusNews/Endowment.Stands.To.Lose.800m-3600877.shtml?reffeature=htmlemailedition]Endowment”>http://media.www.browndailyherald.com/media/storage/paper472/news/2009/01/28/CampusNews/Endowment.Stands.To.Lose.800m-3600877.shtml?reffeature=htmlemailedition)</p>
<p>oh, damn...</p>
<p>This loss is true for so many (all?) schools. Luckily, it seems that President Simmons and her advisory team are being very careful about how they will compensate for the losses. If you read the editorial in today's Brown Daily Herald, the reaction on campus seems to be sober, yet realistic. At least, for us, financial aid is being protected, as is the current curriculum. Re-examining growth, at this time, is extremely prudent.</p>
<p>Since Brown is the poorest of the ivies, not a good sign.</p>
<p>The loss is completely on par with peers-- it's not good, but its no worse than anywhere else.</p>
<p>One difference between Brown and other Ivies is that President Simmons was apparently hiring in anticipation of a successful fund-raising program, which probably also suffered from the economic meltdown, so the meltdown may entail more belt-tightening for Brown than at some other schools that "merely" need to tighten because their endowment income will be lower.</p>
<p>Well we've freezed hiring some time ago and our fundraising was only down 4% as of Dec 31st from the year before, so we're not really in any more dire straights.</p>
<p>We just have a few building projects we wanted to get underway that cannot because we're no longer going to start building unless the money is actually collected as opposed to pledged.</p>
<p>Harvard lost $8B and froze faculty hiring months ago. Nobody is in good shape.</p>
<p>Plus, the $800m purposefully overestimates the loss. Given that the economy is projected to get significantly worst, the university is simply being conservative.</p>
<p>My impression was that Brown was in the midst of a big capital campaign, modestmelody, and that the new hiring was predicated on that capital campaign. If I'm right (and my recollection may not be correct), only being down by 4% wouldn't be as good as it seems. Other than that, I don't see why Brown would be any worse off than other Ivies.</p>
<p>Yes, we are in the midst of a capital campaign to raise 1.4billion by June-- we already have 1.317 billion, far higher than being "on pace" to reach those numbers.</p>
<p>Oh noes. How badly will this affect financial aid?</p>
<p>Rachael: According to Pres. Simmons:</p>
<p>"FINANCIAL AID. The impact of the recession has been felt by most students and their families. In light of our commitment to meet the full need of our financial aid students, scholarship expenditures have increased. Given all the changes that have occurred since the FY09 budget was approved last February, we now expect scholarship expenditures to be almost $1 million more than planned and we anticipate a much greater impact in FY10 and beyond."</p>
<p>Cuts are being made in other areas, but not in financial aid.</p>
<p>it wouldn't hurt these kids to go on food stamps, maybe would help with the sense of entitlement I saw when I toured Brown (we had a very annoying Brown tour guide)</p>
<p>::rollseyes: @ MiPerson</p>
<p>Schools like Brown need to be carefull with the tour guides and the attitude they project, after my son had the tour at Brown, we offered to go back that evening to look around the campus , he said, no, let's go home. Our son had the credentials to get accepted but with the low endowment, "attitude" we saw, the dumpy admissions lecture room, and the "pass/fail" grading.... we decided Brown was just getting by and would not even be in the top twenty unless it was in the Ivy leaque.</p>
<p>I'm sorry you had such a bad experience when you visited Brown. My daughter had similar reactions to great schools when she was searching -- not every school fits every kid. Many students (almost 25,000 this year) have a very different experience than you when they visit Brown.</p>
<p>Brown's endowment might be "low" compared to Harvard, but in context with the 3000 other colleges and universities in the US, its endowment is at the very high end. The pass/fail grading -- which is optional and used very sparingly by most students -- encourages students to take classes outside their comfort zone. If you feel Brown is "just getting by" then I'm really glad your son didn't apply. He doesn't belong at Brown. I am sure he found plenty of schools that fit his personality and needs, and I wish him well in his application process. Just because your son didn't like the place doesn't mean you have to say nasty things about it and its students here.</p>
<p>Well, MiPerson, I'm sorry that you had a poor tour guide but most of what you're talking about in here is either entirely unrepresentative of our campus (attitude) or a complete misunderstanding of a policy (SNC).</p>
<p>Honestly, you're coming off with a pretty strong sense of entitlement in this thread and if you had such a bad experience that you're frustrated you should feel free to talk about it in your own thread where it would be more appropriate and where current students could address your concerns to see if your 2 hours on campus gave you a full enough picture to judge the entire place.</p>
<p>As a Brown grad and parent of a D who is applying this year, I am am not worried. 2 Billion is alot by any stretch. Brown is hardly hurting. All this means is they only have enough money to cover their budget for the next 20 years instead of 30.</p>
<p>Well, obsessive, it is having some slightly more serious effects than that, but only in the context of Brown, rather than relative to everywhere else.</p>
<p>The schools that are going to be really hurt are those middle schools that have spent a ton of money recently making their campuses rather modern to compete with the aging facilities of older prominent schools like Brown. They have far less money in the bank and did a lot of deficit spending to build these structures. Financial viability for those places ten years out is not looking good at all.</p>
<p>We've been building a lot lately and doing more deficit spending in the past, but we've far from bankrupted ourselves. The largest effects is that the increased faculty will not have increased graduate students to compensate for their new size and several pertinent construction projects will not be started until later than anticipated as we wait for more donations to come in. That nice new fitness center with a swimming complex, the Creative Arts Center, the renovation of Faunce, the Mind Brain Center, and the Center for Nanotechnology are all probably going to be placed at least on hold while finances sure up and money trickles in at a slow pace.</p>
<p>We'll be fine, financial aid will be fine, but our rapid improvement that's been going on for the last 8 years or so is going to be put on pause.</p>
<p>Really, it's too bad that Brown didn't have better leadership with the two presidents before Ruth. Fundraising at that time seemed like a non-priority compared to now, resources were not handled well, general organization to watch spending and also to expand and spend coherently was largely lacking. </p>
<p>I don't agree with everything Ruth has done but she has provided structure that our short lived presidencies of the 90s really screwed up with. If not for the changes in the actual university, the changes in governance and administrative structure under Ruth has probably made us significantly more secure than we would have been under some others in our recent past.</p>
<p>If the economy does not improve in the next 6-8 months significantly, I expect to see many medium universities drop significant portions of their school and many top universities scrambling to rapidly restructure.</p>
<p>it sounds like modestmelody is with the Brown administration but I can think you need to understand what some parents see when they visit these schools. You said that there is a since of "entitlement" , and yes, if the parents are going to pay $50k/yr for a private school, we damn well should be heard! We did the "east coast" tour, Yale's tour guides were very good (they have to try out for these positions), Princeton and Dartmouth were very poor, you wouldn't believe the snide comments the Princeton student guide was making. Also, most parents have read the book "price of admissions" , where Brown , because of the low endowment, went after movie star kids and dropped the math requirement to get in.....so let's be realistic here, parents are getting very well informed, and when a school like Brown's endowmwnt goes down by $800 million, this would really worry me if I was a student here. There will be dramaitc cutbacks.</p>