Belt Tightening @ Harvard University

Jennifer Levitz:

In 2009, as its endowment plunged by nearly 30%, Harvard University halted construction on a $1.2 billion science center across the Charles River, angering the neighborhood there by leaving behind a foundation and an idle construction site.

Harvard now says it will resume work on the project, but not until 2014 and even then at half the originally planned size, reflecting a newfound fiscal caution at the school. "The economic realities necessitate this," Kevin Casey, a Harvard spokesman, said in June at a community meeting.

Due to budgetary constraints, Harvard has delayed the construction of a science complex, seen in the foreground above, inside the fenced-in area.

Many universities face shaky finances because of declining state aid and weakened returns on endowments. At Harvard--and some of its Ivy League peers --the recession has lingered because of an unusually heavy dependency on their endowments for operating income. Harvard's $32 billion endowment is up from its 2009 drop to $26 billion, but still off its pre-recession 2008 value of $36.9 billion.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at August 4, 2012 2:48 AM
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