Now that we're officially in a recession and everyone's throwing around words like "death of the middle class," "what job market?" and "SPAM for every meal", perhaps you're having trouble keeping track of all the bad news. We're here to give you the rundown, Ivy-style. In this afternoon's installment of Recession Watch '08: Harvard is out $8 billion! Brown makes like Dartmouth and Cornell and imposes a hiring freeze! And Columbia looks to sell its private equity holdings (maybe)!

This morning, the New York Times reported that Harvard's endowment has lost $8 billion, or 22 percent of its value, in the last four months. In a letter to the deans, University President Drew Faust and Executive Vice President Edward C. Forst '82 said that the total loss in value will likely be closer to 30 percent by June, the end of the current fiscal year. Harvard's endowment is the largest in the country, and the $8 billion loss alone is larger than the endowment value of all but four other American universities (Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT). Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, Harvard President Drew Faust sent out a university-wide email detailing to what extent the school of swank would be impacted by the global economic crisis. In short, Harvard "has weathered many storms" (read: "has lined their pockets well") but will suffer some set-backs in coming months. The fortune few will ride this one out with some paycuts and constraints. According to Dr. Faust:

Harvard is not invulnerable to the seismic financial shocks in the larger world. Our own economic landscape has been significantly altered. We will need to plan and act in ways that reflect that reality, to assure that we continue to advance our priorities for teaching, research, and service.

Thank God: Harvard is going to focus on teaching and research again. For a second, it looked like the nation's oldest institute of higher learning just enabled psychopaths and racial profilers. The announcement from President Faust, Larry Summer's replacement in Massachusetts Hall, sounds less like a policy shift than it does a PR stunt. Just 6 weeks ago, the Harvard Management Corporation (HMC), a bunch of suits who control the fate of the universe—err, the endowment—announced 8.6% growth on Harvard's already gargantuan $36.9 billion portfolio as Standard & Poor's lost 3.6%.  Break out the $100-bill-scented tissues.

While the next Dear "John Harvard" letter from the HMC isn't due until next summer, Harvard shows no signs of tightening the belt so far.  In her letter, President Faust emboldened the college's commitment to providing full rides to students whose families earn less than $60,000 per year. Meanwhile, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government just shelled out $10 million for a program to train emerging leaders from developing countries. [Insert: "Not so evil after all" comment here.]

Read Faust's letter in full along with some sob-stories about poor, jobless HBS grads after the break.

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Damn, should've gone to Dartmouth. Who would've thought that the graduates of this little nugget of an ivy league school (pop. 4,100) in the middle of New Hampshire would be the wealthiest of them all?  According to Forbes, by way of payscale.com, it looks like alumni 10-20 years out of Dartmouth are making an average of $134,000 a year, beating Princeton out at a lowly $131,000.

What are these well-paid Dartmouthers doing, you ask?  Well, nothing too unusual:

Top employers for Dartmouth's 2008 graduating class include Bain, Goldman Sachs and McKinsey, which are almost all high-paying posts. Yet two other big employers of recent grads fall on the other end of the pay scale: Teach for America and the Peace Corps. Both organizations are focused on helping the less fortunate and require two-year commitments. So how do Dartmouth grads, many starting at nonprofits, leapfrog their peers when it comes to compensation as they gain more experience?

That's what I want to know.  I mean, I thought everybody either worked in banking or consulting or taught for TFA.  Why does Dartmouth get more money for doing it?

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