Amid tumult, a degree of stability

As the economic picture brightened in June, Brown loosened the purse strings. BU is now looking to fill 159 jobs, including lab technicians, research fellows, and custodial and clerical staff; at this time last year, it listed only 48 open positions.

Higher education is one of the few major industries in New England to add jobs amid the economic tumult of the past year, creating about 4,000 positions in Massachusetts alone, a 2.3 percent rise since the end of 2007, according to Moody’s Economy.com. The sector is expected to continue to hire, adding about 2,000 jobs by next summer.

Despite the relative stability, industry analysts and college financial managers predict that more difficult times may be ahead.

The federal stimulus money that’s buoyed the budgets of the state’s public colleges will run dry in a year. Wealthy schools that rely on endowments to fund a large portion of operating costs have yet to feel the full impact of last year’s steep investment losses and could end up making more cuts.

And as the traditional college-aged demographic dips in New England in coming years, small tuition-dependent colleges will face stiffer competition for students. To main tain enrollment while families’ financial fortunes tumble, many private schools have already steeply discounted tuition - cutting into their profits - or taken the risky move of granting students admission without assurances that they could foot the bill. Within three years, industry watchers say, some second-tier schools in the college-rich region that fail to find new revenue streams could end up closing.

“It feels very much like we’re at that shifting point to longer term issues and questions,’’ said Roger Goodman, vice president of the US higher education and not-for-profits ratings team at Moody’s Investors Services. “We fundamentally believe that higher education is a really strong industry, but they have a lot of serious challenges to address over time.’’

For the first time in its history, the credit rating agency assigned a negative outlook to the US higher education sector in January, an indication that the financial conditions of both public and private colleges could deteriorate further. Goodman, who wrote the report, stuck by his analysis in Moody’s September update despite preliminary signs of an economic turnaround.

It’s been a difficult year for colleges and universities, a leading employer that pumps more than $99.7 billion into the regional economy.

Harvard University - whose endowment had plummeted 27 percent, to $26 billion, in June - imposed salary and hiring freezes, laid off hundreds of workers, put a brake on its expansion into Allston, and even cut back on hot breakfasts for students and cookies during faculty meetings.

Brandeis University caused an international uproar when its president announced the closing of the university art museum and a potential sale of artwork to generate revenue. Daniel Webster College in Nashua, N.H., was acquired by a for-profit company in June, a fate higher education leaders warn could befall other small, struggling tuition-dependent private colleges.

And amid declining financial support from the state, UMass-Amherst is turning to out-of-state students, who pay twice the amount of tuition and fees as Massachusetts residents, to boost enrollment - and its coffers.

Most colleges are poised to survive the recession, especially large research universities with selective admissions and hefty endowments, said Marc Savaria, a credit analyst at Standard & Poor’s. Enrollments have risen as laid-off workers and recent graduates flock back to school to ride out the recession.

And many colleges and universities have remained resilient by drawing upon multiple sources of revenue - tuition, endowments, philanthropy, and increasingly for some institutions, federal research dollars.

Others, though, will have to quickly adjust to the changed economic environment and re-invent themselves to address fundamental issues such as rising tuition costs if they expect to come out stronger, analysts say. Some have already cut back by raising class sizes and hiring more adjunct faculty instead of costlier tenure-track faculty.

“Schools should be taking advantage of the recession to reexamine their operations and expand where possible,’’ said Joseph Mercurio, executive vice president at Boston University, which is pursuing opportunities abroad as well as launching a new honors program next fall.

The large research university, which relies mostly on tuition, not its small endowment, to fund its operating budget, saw a 48-percent growth in research funding this year compared with this time last year. That helps cover a portion of the university’s operating costs.

The state’s heavy concentration of elite research universities and affiliated teaching hospitals helps brings in about $2.8 billion in competitive federal research funding to Massachusetts each year, according to the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.

The science and technology prowess of the state’s leading research universities, among them Harvard, MIT, and UMass, puts higher education at the center of the state’s “innovation ecosystem,’’ said Michael Goodman, an economic analyst and chairman of the public policy department at UMass-Dartmouth.

The key to survival, analysts and higher education leaders say, is for colleges to remain nimble. Moving forward, more schools will need to generate entrepreneurial ways to draw students, such as adding three-year baccalaureate degree programs and expanding online education to attract adult learners, they say.

Schools should also explore opportunities to partner with other colleges to hold down operating costs by sharing resources, technology services, and even faculty appointments - an idea advocated during this week’s New England Board of Higher Education conference in Boston and something Wellesley College, Olin College of Engineering, and Babson College have begun to do.

Colleges also need to be prepared for more volatility in the financial markets and reassess the amount of risk they are comfortable undertaking while understanding their ability to draw cash for operating expenses. “The smart schools will learn to live a little bit leaner,’’ Savaria said.

Tracy Jan can be reached at tjan@globe.com.