Yale’s endowment dropped about 25 percent to $17 billion since July, returning to where it stood in January 2006 before a period of dramatic growth, Yale President Rick Levin announced Tuesday.
“It is important to recognize,” Levin wrote in an open letter, “that $17 billion is still a very large endowment.”
His announcement has been anticipated, since other universities have been reporting similar drops in their endowments in the wake of Wall Street’s collapse. Harvard announced earlier this month that its endowment dropped 22 percent, or $8 billion, to $36.9 billion in just four months.
Levin predicted that the endowment would remain flat through mid-2010. He projected a Yale budget shortfall of $100 million for the 2009-10 fiscal year, growing to $300 million by 2014.
As a result, Levin announced that Yale will more closely scrutinize the posting of new positions, and try to steer existing staff to those that are approved; cut back on outside consultants; “restrain the growth of salaries”; delay some construction projects, such as the new biology building and School of Management campus; and, largely through attrition, “reduce 2009-10 budgets by an amount equal to 5% of the salaries and benefits of all non-faculty staff.”
Levin made these announcements in a detailed letter to the Yale community. The full text can be found here.