The 1950-51 Budget

THE financial picture for the current year, as presented in the annual budget to the Trustees at their fall meeting October 20-21, is considerably less cheerful than that for the year just completed. The 1950-51 budget predicts increased expense with no offsetting gain in income, resulting in a probable deficit of $492,500 before application of the Alumni Fund. This predicted deficit is after exhaustion of the remaining balance of scholarship income accumulated during World War II when there was little need for scholarship assistance.

Factors of major significance in this forecast are reduced tuition income resulting from about 100 fewer students than a year ago and generally increased expenses in virtually all items. The reduction in student fees is in part the result of the graduation of an abnormally large senior class in June 1950 and in part a reflection of loss of students to the armed forces. Many expense categories and particularly plant operating costs are budgeted at higher than the 1949-50 experience because of the rise in the price level since the outbreak of hostilities in Korea. The heaviest increases, are in instructional and scholarship expense, the latter being about 146,000 or 20% more than in 1949-50.

The Trustees approved the 1950-51 budget with a deficit of ,1492,500 before the Alumni Fund, but with the understanding that an effort would be made throughout the year to bring the budget into balance, both by increasing income and by effecting any further economies which would not impair the basic quality of the College. As of November 15 it appeared to the Treasurer that efforts in these directions would be successful in reducing the budgeted deficit but that the extent of this reduction could not be estimated with any precision until the national economic picture for the first six months of 1951 had been clarified.