Opinions please Recession vs Football??

[RichHParticipant]

PLexpansion, merit aid for football, all PL schools cutting budgets, no apparent movement on Fordham challenge. What happens next? Will FCS as a whole ramp down costs? IL $$$ could make them even moredifficult to recruit against?

Improvement by PL in this climate seems unlikely, can PL at least maintain or even survive?

[ngineerParticipant]

Who knows what lurks in the deep dark recesses of the PL office in Center Valley…..

[HistorianParticipant]

Higher education had its own bubble of heavy borrowing and over spending in the last decade. Thus, the PL schools are not the only ones facing financial difficulties. The super sized endowments that gave the IL the ability to offer lavish financial aid are not so big any more.

The PL certainly has some issues unique to it, but most of its competitors are having problems as well.

[HistorianParticipant]

Following RichH’s lead, I will reply to my own post.

Here is some interesting news from Harvard:

"Harvard has already halted the hiring of junior faculty and announced an early retirement program for tenured professors, and for the first time ever is considering laying off tenured professors."

Harvard’s endownment is down big time and it has commitments to invest $11 billion in the coming years into private equity. Harvard can no longer depend on its endowment income to support its budget.

Other Ivy League schools face similar problems and I think they were much more dependent on their endownments than PL schools. Thus, the free or reduced tuition available from many IL schools to all students, including football players, may become much less common. Perhaps the competitive environment for football recruit may swing abit to the PL’s favor.

[Lehigh74Participant]

Interesting point. Before this economic downturn Lehigh was one of about 70 schools with an endowment of over $1,000,000,000. Endowments are down big time at colleges all over the country. Lehigh has historically been very conservative in handling it’s finances. I think it may be a result of the university’s initial endowment being wiped out in the early 1900’s when the Lehigh Valley Railroad (owned by Asa Packer) went belly up. Many schools are much more dependent on their endowment income to balance their budget. Only 15% of Lehigh’s budget comes from endowment income. By comparison 30% of Lafayette’s budget comes from endowment income.

[Author]

Posts