US: Many universities cut staff and spending

Shrinking endowments, state funding reductions and families struggling to pay tuition are forcing many colleges and universities to cut staff and spending or to delay construction and development plans, writes Tony Pugh of McClatchy. From well-heeled Ivy League schools such as Harvard and Dartmouth to large public institutions such as the California State University system, many institutions are facing difficult financial decisions stemming from the nation's economic standstill.

This week, the California State University system announced plans to trim 10,000 students across its 23 campuses in the next academic year because of funding problems caused by a state budget crisis. The CSU system -the nation's largest, with nearly 450,000 students - will make the cuts by moving up application deadlines and raising academic standards for incoming freshmen.

In previous economic downturns, college enrolment remained steady as more people bolstered their education to help improve their work prospects. However, the unique aspects of the current slide - falling home values and stock prices, rising unemployment, tighter credit and fewer student-loan providers - have made a college education harder to finance and much more difficult to obtain.
Full report on the McClatchy site