Are College Financial Aid Dollars Drying Up?
By Scott Weingold College bound students and their parents who are counting on financial aid to be there to help defray some of the cost of college are in for a bumpy ride ahead in the coming year. Despite new financial aid budgets not being due for another few months, colleges are clearly nervous. For the current academic year, private institution spending on aid jumped a median 9.3%, while tuition rose by a median of just 4.1%, according to an October survey by Moody’s Financial Rating Service. That leaves a greater than 5% gap. Moody’s says nearly 30% of private institutions are projecting a decline in net tuition and fee revenue for fiscal year 2010. That is up significantly from recent years, when less than 10% of institutions anticipated drops in revenue. What’s more, many private university endowments – which impact how universities subsidize their operating budgets – were hit hard by the market downturn earlier this year and still haven’t fully recovered. This month, Dartmouth
