The economic downturn is fostering a new focus in higher-education fund raising in which colleges and universities are encouraging gifts for student aid rather than buildings and programs, The Wall Street Journal reports. “We can delay building that new building,” Bobbi Mark, vice president for institutional advancement at Barnard College, told the newspaper, “but we can’t say to the entire sophomore class: Why don’t you take a year off?”

Barnard, which is trying to interest more donors in a scholarship program that matches the giver with an individual scholarship recipient, is one of several examples cited in the article of institutions that are seeking gifts to cover the increasing demand for student aid. The article also notes Cornell University’s recent increase in its fund-raising goal for undergraduate scholarships to $350-million, from $225-million, and a new $3-billion fund-raising campaign at the University of Texas at Austin. The Texas campaign’s primary focus, a university official said, is on making the cost of attending more affordable. —Charles Huckabee