One of the oldest names in education, Yale University, has lost a quarter of its endowment since the start of June, reducing it’s holdings from $22.9 billion to $17 billion. This comes only two weeks after Harvard’s announcement of losing close to 22 percent of their endowment since June, which resulted in a hiring freeze. Yale will not freeze hiring, but it will severely curtail hiring practices: all new hires will be approved by the provost and a 5 percent budget cut for 2009 will be implemented. The money for the cut will come largely from not hiring new employees and reducing raises. The most substantial part of Yale’s belt tightening will be on the construction front, as Yale President Richard Levin announced current projects will be slowed and future projects may be stopped all together. “Let me be clear,” Levin said in an interview with the Yale Daily News. “Any project that’s already started construction will go forward…everything else, we’re going to have to wait until we can either raise the money to pay for the project in full or wait until we can get access to debt markets without jeopardizing our credit rating.”

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