Post Academic

Today brought a flood of nasty financial news for schools. Here’s a quick look at who’s in trouble now:

–The University of Minnesota is setting a round of pay cuts for everyone. Yes, everyone, even the higher-ups: “Top administrators, who would have had to take six furlough days, would now receive a 2.3 percent pay decrease.” Although that isn’t much of a decrease when you think about it, at least some of the cuts are coming from the top, and you don’t hear about administrators taking on cuts every day. [Minnesota Daily via HuffPo]

–UC Davis is working to eliminate employee “redundancy” by decentralizing jobs so that one staff member services multiple departments. And here’s the twist: the school’s financial aid office has been cut by 17 percent. [Inside Higher Ed]

–Perhaps the ugliest of all: More parents are encouraged to start investing in prepaid tuition plans or 529 plans. Now some of these parents might get burned. Thanks to the stock market’s tanking, Alabama’s fund is down 45 percent … meaning that when parents who have paid into the fund and followed the rules are ready to send their kids to college, Alabama might not be able to cover it. [Birmingham News via Inside Higher Ed]

As always, although this information seems isolated to undergrads, this affects the overall funding prospects for grad students and the future job prospects of academics.