Financial contributions made by Boston University alumni to their alma mater have been consistently and notoriously slim. BU’s endowment is miniscule for a university of its size and the school seems adjusted to the idea that it might never exceed the $1 billion mark by any significant margin. As a contrast, Harvard University’s endowment, which is the country’s most substantial for a college or university, is upwards of $25 billion.
Now, schools with the greatest and bone-dry endowments, alike and each in-between are in similar standing, as they have all survived the worst losses since the Great Depression, according the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Between June 2008 and June 2009, the average U.S. university lost almost 20 percent of its endowment. Those behind the report say they expect the depleted pots will venture toward refilling themselves in the 2009-2010 academic year in concordance with the country’s emergence from recession, but students already surviving the financial burden of loans and likely impending tuition inflation need more assurance than that.
BU needs to address the report and the state of its own endowment, and explain if and how any shift might affect what students pay to take its classes. The correlation between the university’s endowment and the tens of thousands of dollars students pay each year to attend is not evidently clear. For the most part, hikes in the price of a BU education have become an unholy commonplace that amount to a casual, annual email from administrators who try to drown the hardships of devastating financial blows in falsely uplifting jargon. If BU endowment has dropped, and if that drop will change tuition, BU needs to tell its students that. If endowment hasn’t changed significantly, or if potential change will not shake tuition, it needs to say that, too.
The fact that independent donors do not have enough disposable income to contribute to their former schools is telling of the state of former college students’ finances. Clearly, with tighter budgets, those with salaries and incomes cannot, in this economy, afford to give their alma maters any more cash.
Those of us who are still reliant upon parents and loans to remain parts of this machine and who are still months or years away from incomes of our own cannot possibly be expected to take on the burden of the difference. Students need to be financially protected now more than ever, but more importantly, they need to be kept in the loop.