As the Dow Jones averages continue to look bleak and university endowments across the country have diminished, the University of Dayton has started examining the effects it will have on students' financial aid and tuition.

UD's endowment has lost nearly 20 percent of its value in the past five months.

"The endowment was about $391 million in June and it's around $320 million now," Tom Burkhardt, vice president of Finance and Administrative Services, said Tuesday. "And that's not counting today because the market's down again today."

The main elements that UD's endowment supports are financial aid and academic professorships and chairs, according to Burkhardt. It makes up about 10 percent of the budget as compared to making up one-third of most schools', said President Dan Curran. When the total endowment value decreases there is a reduction of moneys distributed, Burkhardt said.

Tuition will be raised next year, Burkhardt said, but the percentage at which it is to increase should be continuous with past years.

Students are aware of the impact of the economic downfall and question its impact on their tuition.

"Hopefully it won't rise," junior Jessica Garrett said. "My parents would make me take out loans to make up for the difference because they're already upset at how high (tuition) is."

Curran said Enrollment Management set up the phone system 1-800-UD-PRIDE to be called with any questions concerning UD.

"It's the ideal vehicle for parents or students to call with financial problems," Curran said.

While the usual anxiety over annual rising tuition costs will undoubtedly continue, current students' scholarships will not be affected. Kathy Harmon, director of Financial Aid, said that increased scholarship requests have not risen due to the current market.

"Regarding the financial aid perspective, we work with students and families as individuals and do all that we can to ensure a student's continuation at UD, using the available resources of scholarships, grants and student loans," Harmon said.

Though the university does its best to help everyone needing financial aid, Ghetto Senator Tim Herrmann said students may have trouble with financial aid, realizing that paying tuition may be harder than ever.

"Current and prospective students will be deterred from staying at or applying to the University of Dayton," he said. "Students who have loans will be hurting because there is no doubt in my mind that tuition will increase. As tuition increases, so will loans, and thus students having to pay more on interest for their loans."

So, how does UD plan to keep up financially without severely raising tuition?

"That's the biggest question," Burkhardt said. "We're going to expect our departments to be very cautious with how they approach spending."

Although tuition is not rising at an unusually high rate and scholarships will be retained, paying tuition may come to be a large problem for many students with the falling market. Internships are becoming harder to find and summer job availability could be worse this summer than last.

Jobs on campus maybe dwindling as well.

"If the first semester is any indication of what will happen for next semester, there probably will be less departments hiring than in past years," Don Vince, director of Student Employment, said. "But I would attribute that more to the fact that two of our four largest employers of students - Residential Services and the Business Research Group - eliminated most of their student positions prior to the start of this school year and prior to the current crisis."

Vince also said that campus employers usually wait until after Thanksgiving to advertise their winter openings. Also, Federal Work Study is set months prior to the school year, so if there is a decrease in student employment in either of these areas, students don't see the effects right away.

"Where I have noticed an impact of the current crisis is in the fact that students who would otherwise be working off campus are looking for jobs on campus," Vince said. "That, coupled with the recent loss of student positions, puts more tension on an already strained system."



The university has taken note of this, he said, trying to add new student positions where available, but this will not be a complete solution.

"It's not nearly enough to offset the loss of nearly 460 student positions prior to this school year," Vince said. "Simply put, we still don't have enough student positions available to meet the demand."

The university has recently bought land, made plans to renovate the chapel, and put the master plan in their agenda. These, too, are being deeply affected by the endowment drop.

"What we understand from the debt markets is we need to make sure we have the funds in place before we start any building programs," Burkhardt said. "We need to be more cautious before we give the go-ahead on new projects."

Both Burkhardt and Harmon said this year is going to be approached with extensive caution and rationality in spending, hiring and selecting incoming students.

"Because the stewards of the university's resources are conservative and very conscientious, I believe the drop in the stock market, provided it is not a long term bear market, will have minimal impact upon the university," Harmon said.





Assistant News Editor Carly Schott

contributed to this story.