RSS
Facebook
Twitter
E-PrinceReader Comments
Endowment value drops 22.7 percent; layoffs expected
Published: Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
The value of the University’s endowment fell 22.7 percent in the last fiscal year, and administrators will be laying off staff members this year, President Tilghman announced in an e-mail to the University community on Tuesday.
The endowment ...
(back to the article)
The opinions expressed here are those of the individual commenters and do not necessarily represent the views of The Daily Princetonian Publishing Company, Inc. We do not take responsibility for the opinions, facts, or claims presented by individual commenters, and reserve the right to moderate or delete inappropriate comments.
I would willingly give my USG social dues to support the University even if the total of all social dues prevented only one person from being discharged. Instead, I have to throw my money away for idiotic social events that I can't even partake in while someone else faces a grim future.
Perhaps we could cut back on these "greening Princeton" programs rather than cut back on faculty.
The endowment fell more than 24%. Typical endowment spending was offset by a debt issuance, which has the effect of masking the true endowment drop.
This Enron-style accounting is beneath Princeton.
How much of Princeton's endowment is liquid and how much of it is in assets like buildings? Land and campus buildings that the university will never part with don't really have much tangible "value" since the university will never sell them to cover its debts. If these assets are included in the endowment, do they use the book value or fair market value? Does anyone know where to find the university's annual report?
also, 04, could you please explain debt insurance?
Buildings are not part of the endowment, unless they are shopping centers' etc. held for investment.
And as others have pointed out, the decline of Princeton's fortunes are understated when you merely count the decline in investment value. The excess of spending over new contributions also reduced the year-end value of the endowment, and, similarly, when Princeton avoided selling investments at a loss by borrowing money to maintain liquidity it reduced the net value of its resources.
ooops.
aaawww.
How could 29% of a $1.3 billion budget come from student fees? Even if all students paid full tuition, room and board, it would be hard to have student fees equal almost $400 million. Is one of these figures off?
"PRINCO will have to reevaluate its investment strategy." No kidding, Shirley.
If there was any real interest in cutting overhead there is a tremendous obvious amount of redundancy that cries out for attention. Rather that taking it out on Public Safety, and other lower paying jobs, where the people do real work, take a look at "human resources" and other high paying jobs that contribute little or nothing to the achievement of academic excellence. We are spending a fortune to be "diverse" and "green" (aka sustainable).
Other things don't make sense. If you pay people enhanced pay packages to leave, doesn't that cause short term expenses to rise dramatically? Must be, since the administration has announced that it was necessary to borrow a $Billion, to pay the rent this year. Debt service on that must be in the neighborhood of $100 MM per year doesn't it?
Finally, it would be nice to know how some of the PRINCO managed assets are valued. It probably has nothing to do with the value of University occupied real estate. The big endowments that have been hit the hardest own a lot of "alternate investments" such as timberland in Oregon, and such. If there is no market for these assets, how are they valued?
Just wondered.
Modest proposal: Save money and go green. Perhaps we could convert some of those many acres of parking lots on the lower campus to some more economic purpose and improve local transit with the income/savings generated. Princeton is still small enough so that nearly anywhere in town is reachable by foot or bicycle. As a former student and townie, I find it depressing to see how much of Princeton is devoted to the automobile.
PS And while we're at it, how about turning down the thermostats campus wide about 2 to 4 degrees in the U's overheated buildings. That would save a bundle.