Creative College Budget Cuts Save Schools Dollars

Posted on Monday, June 29, 2009
Category: Current Events, On Campus

Colleges across the country are finding creative ways to cut their budgets in ways that don’t cut into academics or student life on campus.

These aren’t million dollar cuts. Instead, colleges are trimming a few hundreds dollars here and a few thousand dollars there, according to a recent article in the New York Times.

A few ways colleges are pinching their pennies, according to the Times:

Whittier College in California eliminated trays from the cafeteria, eliminating food waste and cleaning costs.
Davidson College in North Carolina switched from bottled to tap water at many events.
Washington & Jefferson College in Pennsylvania will give trustees cafeteria passes instead of serving them breakfast at meetings.

Inevitably, a few student perks are falling by the wayside. Dickinson College in Pennsylvania is trimming the free student laundry service. Whitman College in Washington is replacing free, unlimited photocopying in libraries and labs with a $60 per semester limit.

But other colleges are finding ways to help their budget and students’ billfolds at the same time. The College of Wooster, in Ohio, is offering minimum wage campus maintenance jobs to students.

More and more schools likely will be following in these schools’ footsteps as budgets are chopped and students need more financial aid. Far from demeaning the college experience, these changes may even enhance innovation. Already, many colleges are holding contests to cut energy costs.

In fact, it would be wise to continue many of these college budget cuts even as the economy improves. Would you rather have your college spend precious budget resources on scholarships … or window washing?

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