Hartford Business Journal

18 Hartford Business Journal • September 30, 2019 • www.HartfordBusiness.com excoriated UConn leaders for raising tuition while seeking additional state budget funds, said students and tax- payers shouldn't have to pay any part of the conference move. UConn's endowment has grown 82 percent over the last decade. Over that same time, the school raised tuition by nearly 40 percent for in-state students who live on campus, HBJ's analysis of higher- education data found. "If additional money exists, why does UConn continue to ask the state for more taxpayer funding year after year to cover growing expenses such as fringe benefit costs?" Fasano asked Katsouleas. Asked for a response, UConn said that while some donations are given with no strings attached, the vast majority of donors specify a purpose for their support — say, new uniforms for the football team, or a professorship in the communi- cations department. "Ninety-nine percent of the exist- ing donations made to the UConn Foundation are restricted for a specific purpose, and by law the money can't be used for any other reason," UConn said in a statement. "The university has said it would welcome any donor interest in help- ing UConn to defray the costs of the conference change, and the UConn Foundation is of course deeply in- volved in that conversation." State Sen. Len Fasano (R-North Haven) has asked the UConn Foundation to cover the cost of the school's move to the Big East athletics conference. >> Endowments continued the seedcorn is something I think most boards [of directors] will react to nega- tively." Spending a larger percentage of endowment re- turns — whether on more student aid or a new fac- ulty position — is seen as generally unwise, and may even violate a state law requir- ing endowment overseers to act as prudent investors. "Markets can be volatile and an institution that is dependent upon an annual distribution of 10 percent to 20 percent would likely see their endowment fund evaporate over time," said Mark Varholak, CFO at Quinnipiac University. Not to mention the ever-present threats of the next recession taking a big bite out of college nest eggs and projections of declining enrollment at regional universities in the Northeast through the next decade. "With the chance of recession on top of demographics, resources from endowments may be limited," said NACUBO's Redd. Many college financial officers deem it prudent strategy to ensure endowments are at least large enough to pay for one year of college opera- tions, said Sandy Baum, a senior fel- low in the Income and Benefits Policy Center at the Ur- ban Institute. That benchmark gives institutions more flexibility to weather enroll- ment dips or rising costs. "If you think about [endow- ments] like a household, you would like to have money so that in a time where you're unemployed and your revenue is slowed down that you'd have money to pay for things," Baum said. "So institutions want to know that if enrollment drops a little bit, or there's some sort of cost increase, they'll have money to weather that." PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED >> Nurturing Nest Eggs continued Gifts that keep on giving These Connecticut colleges and universities received the largest amount of money in private donor gifts in fiscal year 2018. Institution Name FY 2018 Yale University $360,904,799 Connecticut College $44,379,000 Trinity College $31,918,391 Wesleyan University $29,500,000 University of Connecticut $25,438,145 Fairfield University $17,538,756 University of Hartford $12,492,000 Quinnipiac University $10,590,946 Sacred Heart University $9,380,221 University of St. Joseph $4,906,000 Source: National Center for Education Statistics PRESENTED BY: MEDIA PARTNERS: A Service of the Connecticut Department of Transportation HOW TRANSPORTATION IMPACTS CONNECTICUT'S ECONOMY TODAY & TOMORROW Join us as we engage with the business community in a lively conversation showcasing the connection points between transportation demand management (TDM) activities, and economic and business growth in the state. The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, Farmington, Connecticut REGISTRATION NOW OPEN: bit.ly/transportationshowcase2019 8-10:30 AM $45 PP NOVEMBER 7TH SHOWCASE TRANSPORTATION NOVEMBER 7TH

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