Dive Temporary:
- Amid uneven headwinds for the sector, Hampshire School has diminished some worker advantages, together with suspending retirement contributions for workers for fiscal 2025, a spokesperson stated in an e-mail.
- Senior management on the college may even take cuts to their compensation. On the identical time, the Massachusetts-based personal faculty is giving raises to all workers who make $100,000 a yr or underneath and giving all workers 5 further paid days off.
- The faculty’s enrollment is secure however headwinds together with delays within the Free Software for Federal Pupil Support prompted it to reassess its income and expense mannequin, the spokesperson stated.
Dive Perception:
Some 5 years in the past, Hampshire flirted with closure. It went as far as to solely admit a partial class of scholars in 2019, and it was actively on the lookout for a merger associate to assist maintain it.
Since these financially distressed days, the school has launched a serious fundraising drive that raised greater than $43 million thus far, the spokesperson famous. It has additionally revamped its curriculum to interchange majors and departments with courses targeted on addressing urgent world points.
Hampshire’s enrollment has recovered “considerably” over that point, the spokesperson stated. The faculty tasks regular enrollment of 1,000 college students by the 2026-27 tutorial yr, and it expects 900 full-time enrolled college students for the autumn — up from underneath 500 final yr.
Even with these developments, the school ran a whole working deficit of $3.4 million in fiscal 2023, a greater than tenfold improve from the prior yr, in keeping with its newest monetary report. The distinction is because of a lower of almost $3.7 million in federal COVID-19-related funds that diminished Hampshire’s earnings in 2023 by that quantity, the spokesperson famous.
“Hampshire School stays on a powerful path again to monetary sustainability,” President Ed Wingenbach stated in an emailed assertion this week. “Over the past 5 years, we have been a part of a rare comeback and I am assured the proficient group right here can help this extraordinary work, whereas making a sustainable working mannequin the place bills and revenues match.”
The advantages modifications are comparatively modest in comparison with different establishments which are making cuts — a few of them fairly massive — to applications, college and employees this yr.
Columbia School Chicago, as an illustration, just lately introduced cuts to 70 positions on campus, a 5% discount in college and employees. And College of Lynchburg, in Virginia, stated it will nix 40 employees roles within the quick time period and get rid of 40 college positions within the coming years because it cuts applications and tries to stability its funds.
