Small Private Colleges Freeze Hiring and Pay Increases in Favor of Student Aid

In an effort to keep college affordable during the economic storm, small private colleges are cutting back in other areas, like faculty hiring and salary increases, to free up money for student aid, according to the results of a survey released Thursday by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

The results—which came from 371 private colleges, nearly 90 percent of which had enrollments of less than 5,000 students—found that while 50 percent of colleges had frozen hiring or planned to do so, only 8 percent had cut or were planning to cut their student-aid budgets. Only 10 percent have cut or plan to cut student services, and just 7 percent expected academic programs to be affected.

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