"Harvard reports $10 million deficit as costs of COVID-19 add up" by Deirdre Fernandes Globe Staff, October 22, 2020
Harvard University has reported its first operating deficit since 2013, a sign of how much economic havoc the pandemic has caused in higher education.
In its latest financial report released on Thursday, Harvard said it closed the fiscal year, which ended in June, with a $10 million budget deficit, compared with a $308 million surplus the previous year and a $196 million surplus in 2018. Harvard also warned that it expects revenues to be down for a second straight year, a problem the world’s wealthiest university last encountered in the 1930s.
“Even at a place like Harvard, it is feeling what feels like pain,” said Rick Staisloff, a senior partner and founder of RPK Group, an Annapolis-based financial consulting company that works with colleges and universities. The pandemic is likely to hit less wealthy institutions even harder.
Most colleges have money squirreled away in reserves and got federal aid to help weather the early months of the pandemic, but this current fiscal year will be difficult and the next one even harder, Staisloff said.
“Higher education held its breath going into the fall semester and was hoping beyond reasonable hope that it wouldn’t be bad," he said. "They’re waking up to the fact that spring isn’t going to look better. They’re starting that next budget cycle and going ‘uh, oh.’”
Harvard blamed most of last fiscal year’s deficit on lost revenue after the university refunded room and board charges when it sent students home in March, closed research labs, canceled executive education programs, and shut down most events and reunions due to the pandemic. It also absorbed the cost of the early retirement program.
A $10 million deficit in Harvard’s $5.4 billion operating budget may seem small, but it represents a sharp reversal for a university and comes primarily from a decline in revenue. Harvard in recent years has reported 3 percent to 4 percent in revenue growth, and the last time the university reported a decline was during the 2008-2009 economic crisis.
“The financial effects on Harvard from the onset of the pandemic in March of this year were significant and sudden,” Thomas J. Hollister, Harvard’s vice president for finance, cowrote in a message Thursday that accompanied the university’s annual financial report. “Sound financial management allowed the university to be in a position to cover sudden losses from operations, while also investing in the mission.”
The value of Harvard’s endowment increased to $42 billion and offered a bright spot by providing 7.3 percent in returns and helping increase the university’s net assets by 2 percent to $50 billion, but Harvard officials said that this current fiscal year also could end with operating deficits. The university is offering only online classes this fall and only first-year students and those facing hardships are staying in dormitories this semester, meaning that Harvard is forgoing significant room and board revenue. The university also is spending money to test students for coronavirus and reconfiguring labs to ensure social-distancing rules and safety.
“How we manage declining revenue and rising need for investment in excellence amid new and necessary health protocols will, in part, determine our successors' ability to endure and thrive,” Harvard President Lawrence Bacow said in a message to the university community.
Universities across the country faced significant losses last fiscal year when they had to suddenly move to remote learning to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. Many have continued to teach online and reduced the number of students in their dormitories to meet social distancing rules. Student enrollment has also dropped at many campuses, as entering first-year students opted to defer college for a year instead of paying for a mostly-online experience.
According to the New England Commission of Higher Education, the regional accrediting agency, many New England colleges experienced unprecedented enrollment declines this fall as students opted out of remote learning or job losses pushed tuition out of reach, putting further pressure on financially struggling institutions.
Institutions, even wealthy ones, are going to have to start looking at making cuts to faculty, staff and programs, Staisloff said.
In the past, many colleges have contained their cuts to low-wage workers, by outsourcing food services or cleaning or cutting back on contracted employees, but they will likely have to make more significant reductions that could hit faculty due to the pandemic, Staisloff said.
“For the first time, you’re going to see widespread impact,” he said.
Some of the financial challenges to higher education predate the pandemic, as families have balked at high tuition costs and questioned whether degrees always led to better paying jobs. The number of college-age students has also been declining, Staisloff said.
“Covid has turned the dial up to 11,” he said. “Higher education’s business model is not sustainable in the long term.”
No more cushy administration jobs doing nothing!
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Related:
"As it resurges across the country, the coronavirus is forcing universities large and small to make deep and possibly lasting cuts to close widening budget shortfalls. By one estimate, the pandemic has cost colleges at least $120 billion, with even Harvard University, despite its $41.9 billion endowment, reporting a $10 million deficit that has prompted belt tightening. Though many colleges imposed stopgap measures such as hiring freezes and early retirements to save money in the spring, the persistence of the economic downturn is taking a devastating financial toll, pushing many to lay off or furlough employees, delay graduate admissions and even cut or consolidate core programs like liberal arts departments. Most of the suspensions are in social sciences and humanities programs where the universities — rather than outside funders such as corporations, foundations and the federal government — typically underwrite the multiyear financial aid packages offered to doctoral students. University officials say the suspensions are necessary to ensure their strapped budgets can continue supporting students already in Ph.D. pipelines, but Suzanne T. Ortega, president of the Council of Graduate Schools, noted that interrupting that pipeline could also have a lingering impact on the higher education work force....."
Yup, nothing is off limits despite them sitting on nearly $42 billion dollars!
It's not really $urpri$ing. Harvard would be all in on the Great Re$et.
It's due to a $25m gift from ex-Tiger Cub Chris Shumway and the joint life-sciences MS/MBA program at Harvard Business School took its first 11 students in August, with three-quarters of the class are women.
Two local scholars are among 21 recipients of this year’s MacArthur fellowships
They are Isaiah Andrews, a Harvard University economics professor, and Mary L. Gray, a senior researcher at Microsoft Research, along with 19 other recipients “have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction,” the foundation said on its website.
The coming New World Order has me praying for an asteroid to hit the planet.
Also see:
"Smith College announced Wednesday that it has received a $50 million donation, the largest in the school’s nearly 150-year history. The gift comes from a Smith graduate who asked to remain anonymous, the college’s president, Kathleen McCartney, said in a campus letter. The gift includes $40 million for student financial aid and $10 million for career development programs. “Her investment in the college will allow us to make a giant stride in equalizing the Smith experience for students from low- and middle-income backgrounds,” McCartney wrote. McCartney said it brings the school one step closer to implementing “need-blind” admissions, a relatively rare practice in which colleges do not consider applicants’ family wealth when selecting students. In a statement released by the college, the alumna said Smith had a meaningful impact on her life, and she felt obligated to pay it back....."
The Globe doesn't even know where that is, and could not care less:
"Apparently, there’s an entire region of Massachusetts between Worcester and the Berkshires, three whole counties stacked on top of each other along the Connecticut River that I’m told is called the Pioneer Valley. If I knew this I forgot it, probably because Pioneer Valley sounds like a made-up marketing name to avoid saying Connecticut. Watch as I forget it again. Boom. Forgotten. Western Massachusetts is a perfectly fine name for everything west of Worcester. The name is not Westernmost Massachusetts. If UMass isn’t in Western Mass., then I quit. I’m not driving any further....."
The idiot doesn't even know his geography, so why should we apply any validity to the rest of his insultingly eliti$t screened?
Maybe it is time for me to forget the Bo$ton Globe, boom!
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Of course, if you can't get into Harvard you can try the crappy local university:
"The University of Massachusetts Amherst on Friday became the latest area institution to report a coronavirus outbreak, announcing that 13 students tested positive for the illness last week. The students, who live off campus, are known to have socialized together, and several attended a party with one another, according to the statement. A letter sent to UMass Amherst students said additional positive cases could be reported in the coming days as health officials work to identify close contacts. University officials said in an e-mail to the Globe Sunday that they were unable to provide further details on the party that the students attended. Students who live on campus or who attend campus for in-person classes are required to be tested for the coronavirus twice a week, according to university policy. Undergraduates in the area who do not attend classes on campus are encouraged, but not required, to be tested twice a week as well, and graduate students attending online classes are asked to seek weekly tests. Health officials are notifying those who came in close contact with the students so they can perform COVID-19 tests and place them in quarantine, officials said. Several colleges and universities in New England have reported coronavirus outbreaks in recent weeks, including Boston College, the University of Rhode Island, and Merrimack College."
Merrimack has gone full remote amid the coronavirus outbreak, and did you know that UMass-Boston was among the few public colleges to see enrollment increase?
"Amid an unprecedented financial crisis, the university has hired at least seven people with connections to state government and politics as administrators with salaries between $81,000 and $222,000 in the past year and a half, records show. The hires include the former head of the state Democratic Party, a former legislative aide, and a former state commissioner of environmental protection. Together, the seven people earn nearly $1 million. A UMass campus spokesman said in a statement that hiring is based on merit, and the hires underscore UMass’s reputation as a place where the politically connected of Beacon Hill can land a job with a single phone call. It’s an attractive place to work in part because the UMass system is part of the state retirement system, so state employees can continue to earn toward their pensions, which are based on their three highest years of pay and their number of years of service, and the campus’s location is for many more appealing than traveling to the other campuses in Lowell, Dartmouth, Worcester, or Amherst."
That must be why one online class cost $1,425 extra (should have read the fine print).
"Salem State University students to face discipline for violating public health guidelines with large gathering" by Emily Sweeney Globe Staff, September 28, 2020
Several Salem State University students will face discipline for attending off-campus gatherings in violation of public health guidelines, authorities said.
Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll and Salem State University President John Keenan released a joint statement that said the two incidents occurred Friday night.
“In addition to violating rules regarding large gatherings, there was also conduct involved in both incidents that led to arrests," the statement said. “In each case, the Salem Police Department and City officials are working closely with Salem State Police and university officials to identify as many responsible parties as possible and ensure they face the appropriate consequences, both on- and off-campus.”
What you are looking at is the WITCHCRAFT of TYRANNY!
Driscoll and Keenan said in the first incident, police broke up a gathering of more than 50 people at an apartment on Becket Street and arrested one individual, who is not a Salem State student, on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. The property owner also is going to be cited by Salem police for keeping a disorderly house and those who attended the gathering will be issued citations from Salem public health officials, the statement said.
It's a MEDICAL TYRANNY!
“Any current Salem State students who are identified as having attended the gathering will also face additional disciplinary consequences from the university,” the statement said. “All individuals who attended this gathering, whether identified or not, are strongly encouraged to get a free COVID-19 test, either through SSU if they are a university student or through the City’s free “Stop the Spread” testing at Salem High School.”
So they can declare you positive based on one of their flawed and faulty PCR tests.
This is f**king insidious, folks!
Driscoll and Keenan said the second incident involved vandalism to the playground equipment at Pickman Park. A Salem State student was arrested and charged with burning personal property, vandalism, and destruction of property over $1,200. “The investigation and identification of other people present, as well as their involvement, is ongoing,” the statement said.
Should have burned the city instead, kid.
“Those responsible in both instances will be held accountable to the greatest extent possible under the law and under the university’s disciplinary policies,” the statement said. “We believe it is important that City and university officials work together to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in our community.”
It's an evil city, all right.
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Related:
Berklee College of Music appoints first female president
Also see:
"Gina Chaput, a molecular microbiologist and postdoctoral researcher at North Carolina State University, was scrolling through Twitter in late September when she liked an innocuous tweet by another young female scientist, Sabah Ul-Hasan, a bioinformatics researcher in California. A notoriously antagonistic account, posting under the name “The Science Femme, Woman in STEM,” had been trolling Ul-Hasan in the replies of a Tweet she wrote about the struggles of being a “ ‘nice’ minority scientist.”
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Anything to avoid class.
"College campuses have been eerily subdued this fall with students stuck in dorms and social gatherings limited to small groups, but what happens on the night of a deeply polarizing presidential election and the ensuing days if the results are unknown or hotly contested? With the election just days away, colleges across the country and in the Boston area are preparing for potential turbulence — celebratory parties, angry protests and counterprotests, and bursts of violence, all in the midst of a global pandemic. College campuses have long been hot beds of activism and action over issues such as war, racial justice, police reform, and immigration, but this year university leaders are facing heightened anxiety brought on by both COVID-19 and heated political rhetoric. In many parts of the country, where colleges serve as liberal bubbles in conservative communities, university officials fear their campuses could be a draw to right-wing and militia groups, spurring many leaders to plan for additional police presence...."
They will want to see YOUR BADGES, kids, as your freshman year turns into a lesson in solitary confinement.
UPDATE:
The Globe eulogizes her as a pioneering woman in leadership roles in Greater Boston's mental health field who went on to define approaches to counseling survivors of disasters.
