Colleges Protect Workers and Cut Elsewhere

Most colleges have steered through the first jolts of the recession without resorting to layoffs, cutting employee benefits, or imposing across-the-board freezes on hiring. But the economic pain is afflicting campuses in many other ways, according to the findings from a new survey of chief business officers conducted last month by The Chronicle and Moody’s Investors Service.

Slightly more than one in 10 colleges had laid off employees, and another 26 percent were considering doing so, survey responses from more than 200 public and private four-year colleges showed.

While few institutions have imposed total freezes on hiring faculty members (5 percent) or staff members (7 percent), more than 40 percent said they had imposed partial freezes on faculty hiring, and nearly 60 percent had done so for other staff positions.

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