Harvard Overreacts on the Budget

Largest endowment in the country, and the President of Harvard sends out this ridiculous e-mail (source, Yahoo):

Faust warned in an e-mail to faculty, staff and students that "we must recognize that Harvard is not invulnerable to the seismic financial shocks in the larger world. Our own economic landscape has been significantly altered."

"We need to be prepared to absorb unprecedented endowment losses and plan for a period of greater financial restraint," she said.

Harvard's is the nation's largest university endowment and provides about a third of the annual operating budget. Faust said the school is looking at ways to cut spending and will review compensation costs, which account for nearly half of the budget.

Harvard lost 3.32B or less from stocks, not from revenues. And they will cut back by not giving raises to and/or making health premiums higher for academic officers and union staff, not getting rid of incompetent administrators or cutting back on salaries of higher ups and faculty who aren't teaching per se. I don't get it.

I can hear Thumblina playing her violin for "Harvard, Fair Harvard."