Here’s an insightful article from teh Chronicle of Higher Education detailing what higher educational institutes have been going through the past few months.    I’ve got an excerpt below, or you can click here to view the whole article.  A paid subscriptions may be required.

“When the stock market plunged 778 points last week, losing almost 9 percent of its value in one day, higher education responded in an uncharacteristic way: It began to buckle.

Colleges have often considered themselves recession-proof. But last week’s events compounded an already-difficult year for many institutions, which have suffered from declining state support, tightening credit, and losses on endowment earnings. As a result, the financial meltdown—with its promise of a prolonged economic downturn—prompted some institutions to take radical steps and wreaked havoc on the way colleges do business.

Boston University’s president announced he would freeze hiring and stop all building projects that had not already been approved. Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter tabled all taxpayer-supported construction, stalling several campus building projects. And Wachovia bank froze the accounts of nearly 1,000 colleges, leaving those institutions unable to access billions of dollars they depend on for salaries, campus construction, and debt payments. Some colleges are concerned they may not be able to make payroll.

Even as Wall Street rebounded a bit from its historic loss, campus leaders told The Chronicle they were considering other responses to the crisis: Public institutions talked about increasing tuition as other  revenue falls, while private colleges said they would dip into their endowments to increase student aid and counter a growing scarcity of private student loans. Campus leaders discussed offering classes in the evenings and on weekends to maximize campus efficiency. And they said they would consider hiring more adjunct instructors instead of tenure-track faculty members and look for ways to boost cash flow by borrowing money from auxiliary operations like stadiums and bookstores.”