MIT to cut spending by $50 million

You know that the economy is bad when the big three teaching instituations are cutting their spending. This is the first time I recall such action. May they rebound quickly.

Yep time to cut down on spending, and potential cut in jobs and new positions, yet at no point will her salary of $808,000 be affected. Well played.

Again the hell with the students our investment growth is more important.

I can't stand when the media does this. It's a 5% budget cut! Pretty dang reasonable, no matter what the economic environment is like. Meanwhile a top-of-the-fold headline with "cut spending by $50 million" grabs attention, so that's what reports write (and, apparently, editors publish). Put it in perspective Tracy, et al. $50 million ain't what it used to be--and it's ALL relative.

All these colleges and universities want to make cuts and lower cost on certain items which makes sense, but at the same time they should not be cutting staff if needed when endowments for places like Harvard are in the multi billions of dolllars. Isn't the point of having these endowments to use them when a tough economic time is upon the school, the school can dip into it's "savings account" a family would do to make sure the school runs as usual.
I don't get it.

Bill F., you need to put it in perspective. For those of us working at MIT, a 5% budget cut is a pretty big deal. They're not cutting need-based financial aid, and lord knows more people are going to need it, so that translates to a bigger cut to resources material and human. Facilities tends to take the first cut, and they're the people in the toughest situation--often unskilled, generally living paycheck to paycheck. A 5% cut there means 1 in 20 people! A 5% cut in researchers means one person from each research team. That's a big deal.

Also, if you look at President Hockfield's letter to the community (available on the MIT website), you see that she's thinking about far deeper cuts, possibly 15%. That 5% number is a baseline. And those are some scary figures.

Hello Concerned Researcher (et al). I know people (and things) will be affected by budgets cuts. It's not that I wish anyone to lose their job (quite the contrary!)--no matter the circumstances. It's the headline on this article that irks me; it has TV "7 News" pizzaz. Sad to say there will be plenty of economic carnage in the months to come (really sad!). But the media needs to parse it out better...and have more reasonable headlines. OpEd is where the "sizzle" should be.

Maybe MIT ought to take a page from Harvard and admit more affluent, dumb kids who can pay the freight.
Oops, my bad !