News Briefs

University endowments rebound in 2003

After several years of shrinking, university endowments around the country showed a healthy improvement in the 2003 fiscal year.

Universities reported on average a 2.9 percent return last year, compared to the average 6.4 percent loss they incurred in 2002. The country's wealthiest schools, including Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, generally saw the largest percentage increases.

Tufts' endowment increased 2.9 percent as well, to $669 million.

Despite overall positive reports, other prominent schools including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dartmouth College, and Emory University saw their endowments decline last year.

Universities rely on endowments to cover five to 20 percent of their annual budgets. Although 2003 returns were mostly positive, it remains to be seen if they can make up the difference caused by inflation and cutbacks in state funding that have plagued schools across the country.



Congressional budget fails to increase Pell Grant aid

Congress passed a plan last Thursday that will raise spending on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) while keeping the maximum Pell Grant at the same level as last year.

The new legislation is generally regarded as a victory for college lobbyists. It prevents the U.S. Department of Education from making a change in its financial aid policy which would have made 84,000 Pell Grant students ineligible for scholarships in the next academic year.

College lobbyists were simultaneously disappointed that Congress did not increase the maximum Pell Grant from $4,050, despite a country-wide surge in college tuitions.

The NIH budget was increased by 3.6 percent to approximately 28 billion dollars. The relatively small increase ends a period of growth for the agency, whose budget doubled in the last five years. The NIH funds many research grants at universities, and is an important source of funding for colleges.



Four universities to develop new open-source courseware system

Indiana University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and the University of Michigan have agreed to collaborate in the creation of open-source courseware tools and related software for higher-education institutions.

Dubbed the Sakai Project, the $6.8 million venture is expected to include web-based software programs that include online class rosters, course outlines, assignment postings, discussion boards and online quizzes, all of which can be tailored to fit a particular institution's needs.

The creators of Sakai hope to draw institutions away from the commercial courseware market. Currently, WebCT and Blackboard control approximately 42 percent of the market. During the past year, many institutions have taken issue with commercial courseware, citing problems associated with rising licensing and software costs, the inability to be customized to an institution's needs, and software glitches.