As the economy sinks, dwindling state appropriations and plunging endowment values are forcing colleges to make significant budget cuts. Professors--from the tenured to the adjunct--are beginning to see teaching-load increases and travel restrictions, along with salary cuts and layoffs. At institutions taking austerity measures, those measures are…

A newly compiled analysis by the U.S. Department of Education and obtained by "The Chronicle" shows that 114 private nonprofit degree-granting colleges were in such fragile financial condition at the end of their last fiscal year that they failed the department's financial-responsibility test. Colleges that fail the test are subject to extra…

In a sputtering economy, and with demographic changes ahead, the model of ever-increasing price and merit-based student aid cannot be sustained. But what new system might rise in its place? One option is returning to a system in which the government bears more of the cost of higher education--something that might be possible, if still unlikely, in…

Few documents in higher education have enjoyed the influence or longevity of the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the 1960 law that transformed the state's public colleges and served as a blueprint for public systems across the country. Even today, almost 50 years after it was written, the master plan retains a mythic status in…

This year was bleak for state higher-education budgets. But college leaders are even more worried about what comes next. The billions of dollars in federal stimulus aid to plug shortfalls in state education budgets have helped limit the damage this year, but the money hasn't prevented all of the cuts to college budgets. Most states are spending…

To be at the University of Arizona these days is, in some ways, to be under siege. The flagship university in one of the nation's fastest-growing states may have to eliminate some 600 jobs and merge dozens of programs to deal with two rounds of budget cuts imposed since June. Now the governor is telling the university and other state agencies to…

The end of the fiscal year usually isn't a momentous occasion for colleges. But this June 30 could be a day of reckoning many never expected. Colleges borrowed billions of dollars over the past decade to improve facilities and fulfill their ambitions. Now the consequences may be about to blow up in their finances. The author reports on how…

Not long ago, forecasts for state appropriations to higher education were gloomy as the credit crisis, a slumping housing market, rising energy costs and unemployment, and sagging consumer confidence took their toll on state finances. The budget news emerging from many statehouses for colleges and universities has been better than expected. This…

Universities are watching their state budgets crumble across the country: The University of Arizona has put a freeze on all state-financed hiring, Georgia's 14 technical colleges are being merged into seven, and New York will probably have to shelve a plan to create a $3-billion fund to attract cutting-edge research to the Empire State, which…

This article reports that the nation's economic crisis is bringing colleges higher borrowing costs, smaller endowments, tighter budgets, and fears over the availability of loans for their students. Yet one of the most critical factors in colleges' health--student enrollment--appears to be largely holding strong, at least for now. Tuition and fees…

In economically struggling communities, small private colleges are helping generate development projects in large part as a matter of survival. Unlike research universities and land-grant institutions, which have long viewed regional economic development as central to their missions, most liberal-arts colleges are relative newcomers to this work,…

Community colleges in nearly half of the states will probably face midyear reductions in their appropriations, according to a survey of members of the National Council of State Directors of Community Colleges. The study paints a bleak picture of a widening fiscal crisis among state governments, which started in the most recent budget year and is…

Financial pressures are forcing the closure of some teaching hospitals and retrenchment using such strategies as development of ambulatory care and satellite facilities, merging with or acquiring other hospitals, and shortening patient hospital stays. A table lists revenues and profit margins for the 20 largest university-owned teaching hospitals.…