Belt Tightening @ Harvard University
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.
