With the recession, many have been cutting back on expenses, including colleges. To help pay the expenses, colleges have “endowments,” which come from donations and wills of charity givers. These endowments have dropped 25 percent due to the stock market crash. While it does not affect the smaller colleges, who barely rely on these funds, it has made an impact on the bigger schools, such as Harvard. These bigger schools use these endowments to pay for scholarships, upkeep, and construction of new buildings.
To keep the loss from having too big of an impact, some colleges are decreasing the amount of scholarships given out and increasing the cost of tuition. Those who already got a scholarship before this fall are not affected by the decrease in money given out. For those who are applying during or after this fall, a change will be noticeable. “A couple of colleges have been accepting less students to keep the scholarships the same,” said college counselor Susan Janes, “but the best thing to do is look directly at the colleges and see if there are scholarships available.” Already, colleges are starting to lay off teachers, reduce services, and, at the worst, stop sport activities. This means the smaller classes will not be there next year. The larger classes will be the least affected.
Students have many different alternatives, such as starting work at an earlier age to help pay the tuition.
Others have turned to community colleges to get an education because of the rise in tuition rates. “The College of DuPage is one of the best community colleges, and students can get transfer scholarships if they started at a community college,” said Janes. While this might not be ideal for many, it definitely saves a lot of money for later on.
Jessica Marone, Staff Writer
