Ask Not

Northeastern isn’t building a new dorm after all. MIT is slashing 10 to 15 percent of its spending. At Harvard, President Drew G. Faust wrote a letter.

Her gist was simple: Harvard is not immune. Thanks to economic reality, colleges across the country have had to make painful financial decisions, and the world’s richest university has a proportional amount to lose. Yesterday, the administration announced a 22-percent decline in Harvard’s $36.9 billion endowment over the last four months—the sharpest drop in history. Worse yet, Faust predicted continued gloom for the endowment, with a forecasted 30-percent drop for the fiscal year ending in June 2009. At the same time, current estimates call for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) to make next year’s budget about $200 million thinner. In other words, add Mass. Ave. to the cliché about Wall Street and Main Street.

Faust’s original letter sounded hopeful yet sober, and we feel the same. For all our complaints and cynicism, universities are in the business of helping people through constant growth—whether it be the creation of new student spaces, money for research, or job creation for community members. When Harvard stops spending, it stops growing; in fact, opportunities shrink. We hate the idea of even a single budget rollback, but we glumly agree with the administration that they are necessary the economic situation we are in.

FAS dean Michael D. Smith announced one of those unfortunate measures last week when he followed several other major universities in implementing a staff hiring freeze. While this hiring freeze is deplorable in principle, as a practical matter, we are compelled to support it. As far as budget cuts go, this is a fairly benign one—halting growth is far preferable to reversing it, as through layoffs. FAS must make up the deficit somewhere, and the $10 million saved by the freeze constitute one sizeable step out of the woods. It could have been much worse.

The catch is that it probably will be. Two hundred minus 10 leaves $190 million that FAS has not yet decided how to cut. As students, our natural reaction is likely to include telling the administration to preserve undergraduate life at all costs. But we do not—and we students should not—take this tack. FAS will almost certainly cut something cherished: Pain is part of the nature of budget cuts. Instead, students should prepare to sacrifice our share, just as all elements of higher education are doing.

This begins with the recognition that our interests are not overriding. The Harvard community is not just students—nor is it just students and faculty. Harvard is one of the largest employers in Massachusetts, and its staff depends on the university far more than we do. Their ability to work here, just like our ability to study here, deserves to be preserved.

First, we do not—and we all must not—view staff interests as separable from our own. These are the people who make Harvard run. Specifically, many non-department committees, such as History and Literature, rely especially heavily on staff. There is no telling how students’ experiences could be affected without them—or the hundreds of more invisible Harvard workers. Directly or indirectly, the budget crunch will harm student life, but it shouldn’t ruin a staffer’s in the process.

Unfortunately, FAS cannot rule out layoffs to inch closer to the $200 million mark. The question for students is how to weigh them against our concerns—and the only answer is equally. The administration will probably need to delay progress in Allston; housing renovations may not happen as quickly as we would like. We should be prepared for FAS to spare no one, and rightfully so.

There is no question that this will diminish our quality of life and dim students’ prospects in the near future. But that is what a recession does. We cannot expect others to pay the penultimate price without shouldering part of the weight ourselves.

Some may argue that a university ultimately exists to serve its students. But, through our sacrifices, students can reassure beloved dining-hall workers and library security guards of the truth: This is as much your university as it is ours.

In the end, student-life cuts, though extremely lamentable, touch only our relatively cushy lives inside the bubble. Layoffs hit at home—the equivalent of our financial aid. In these desperate times, financial aid is the only luxury students should never be asked to give up. Harvard has made a laudable and well-publicized effort to reach out to lower-income students, and this absolute good cannot change; especially as the markets plunge, financial aid becomes more and more crucial. Neither prospective students nor current students should ever find themselves unable to meet the asking price. Moreover, our university’s exceptional financial-aid programs have become part of its unique identity in the national collegiate collage. No on-campus concern can ever be tall enough to touch financial aid on its pedestal; in fact, we should be prepared to cut down some concerns to expand aid further. This external necessity is worth any internal cost.

The crux of our message is still this: We are bitterly disappointed by these cuts. But, put into perspective with a local’s livelihood, they are worthy sacrifices. We hope—and we all should hope—that students get a chance to give their part for the university as a whole. Faust’s letter’s reminder that “Harvard is not invulnerable” serves as a further reminder to all of higher education: Universities are not ivory towers, but forums for the wider world.