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How the Financial Crisis and Great Recession Affected Higher Education

The recent financial crisis had a profound effect on both public and private universities, which faced shrinking endowments, declining charitable contributions, and reductions in government support. Universities responded to these stresses in different ways. This volume presents new evidence on the nature of these responses, and on how the incentives and constraints facing different institutions affected their behavior. 
           
The studies in this volume explore how various practices at institutions of higher education, such as the drawdown of endowment resources, the awarding of financial aid, and spending on research, responded to the financial crisis. The studies examine universities as economic organizations that operate in a complex institutional and financial environment. The authors examine the role of endowments in university finances and the interaction of spending policies, asset allocation strategies, and investment opportunities. They demonstrate that universities’ behavior can be modeled using economic principles.

360 pages | 8 halftones, 54 line drawings, 49 tables | 6 x 9 | © 2014

National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report

Economics and Business: Economics--Development, Growth, Planning

Education: Education--Economics, Law, Politics, Higher Education

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction
Jeffrey R. Brown and Caroline M. Hoxby

1.   Endowment Management Based on a Positive Model of the University
Caroline M. Hoxby

2.   The Interaction of Spending Policies, Asset Allocation Strategies, and Investment Performance at University Endowment Funds
Keith C. Brown and Cristian Ioan Tiu

3.   Competition among University Endowments
William N. Goetzmann and Sharon Oster

4.   Keynes, King’s, and Endowment Asset Management
David Chambers, Elroy Dimson, and Justin Foo

5.   The Supply of and Demand for Charitable Donations to Higher Education
Jeffrey R. Brown, Stephen G. Dimmock, and Scott Weisbenner

6.   The Impact of the Financial Crisis on Faculty Labor Markets
Sarah E. Turner

7.   The Financial Crisis and College Enrollment: How Have Students and Their Families Responded?
Bridget Terry Long

8.   Federal and State Financial Aid during the Great Recession
Eric Bettinger and Betsy Williams

9.   Did the Fiscal Stimulus Work for Universities?
Michael F. Dinerstein, Caroline M. Hoxby, Jonathan Meer, and Pablo Villanueva

Contributors
Author Index
Subject Index

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