News that Harvard’s lost $8bn of its $37bn endowment in four months shows how the financial crisis has hit colleges. The report notes:

Many colleges have adopted economy measures such as halting faculty raises, freezing all new hires and delaying capital investments to compensate for their shrinking endowments.

You have to wonder what this will do to scholarships and tuition for next years college applicants.

It’s been the few institutions with multi-billion dollar endowments who have been giving sizeable tuition breaks across the board. It probably won’t continue.  And don’t look for less well off colleges to have the funds to help with tuition that they have had in the past.