Unsustainable Middlebury - David Reed

Middlebury has some of the best facilities and resources of any small liberal arts college in America, but not by chance. As our academic standing improved in the last decade, we invested heavily in our infrastructure. Our once modest campus was transformed through the large-scale building projects including Atwater suites, Atwater dining hall, the Davis Family Library, Bi Hall and the Axinn Center; not to mention the extensive renovations of the athletic complex, McCullough and Proctor to name just a few. But unlike many colleges, we did not mandate complete financing prior to starting a building project and therefore we took on hundreds of millions in debt to finance this construction.

Middlebury currently holds approximately $290 million in long-term debt (almost $400 million of total liabilities) and an endowment of only $840 million. Our fiscal year 2011 operating budget (the amount of money we plan to spend this year) is $230 million, which is financed through a number of means — 55 percent is generated by undergraduate admission fees, 11 percent from Bread Loaf /Language school/ Middlebury Schools Abroad and a whopping 21 percent is financed from our endowment. This is substantially greater than other comparable colleges such as Williams or Amherst that only finance approximately 5 percent of their operating budget through their endowment.

Middlebury has developed an irresponsible and unsustainable habit of dipping into the endowment to fund current operations, effectively subsidizing the total cost of a Middlebury College education. With so much debt on our balance sheet, we spend seven percent ($16 million) of our annual operating budget servicing our debt. Coincidently, we finance seven percent of our operating budget through “gifts and campaigning” meaning our “gift” donors are essentially paying the interest costs of our lavish spending during the early and mid 2000s.

Despite the historic global recession, Middlebury has increased its operating budget every year on record with a total increase of 29 percent since 2005. You may question this considering the aggressive budget cuts, such as the reduction in financial aid, closing of Atwater dining hall or even the temporarily unkempt lawn surrounding the Bi Hall quad. But think about the new fleet of public safety vehicles (The ’04 Ford Escape just didn’t cut it) or Middlebury’s taste for expensive art. Since 1994 Middlebury has followed a ‘one percent policy’ that “sets aside one percent of the cost of any renovation or new construction at the college for the purchase, installation, maintenance and interpretation of works of art publicly displayed on campus” — Axinn alone would mandate $500,000 to be spent on public art. The arts are an integral aspect of a liberal arts education; however, we are spending money we do not have to follow an outdated policy in the midst of a historic economic downturn.

Middlebury has found itself in an unfortunate situation. We are attempting to preserve the quality of a top liberal arts education while maintaining the resources of a university without economies of scale; hence our pricy tuition that is, as incredible as it seems, heavily subsidized through the endowment draw down. This pattern of spending is of concern and is simply unsustainable without generous and continuous alumni support. There is no doubt that Middlebury is financially dependent on donations and yet, they have frankly failed to make me want to donate.

I have grown increasingly frustrated with Middlebury’s arbitrary institutional policies, underfunded Career Services Office, power hunger, rude public safety officers and a set of parking rules that just don’t make sense. With an operational model clearly dependent upon donations to fund current/future operations, it is unclear why the administration has not made a better effort to promote an amicable relationship with the student body.

The quality of the student body, professors and the overall experience at Middlebury is unparalleled but the petty administrative policies are bound to frustrate any well-educated young adult. Given their donation dependent financial model, they need to reform their approach to administrative policies because they risk alienating the potential donors upon whom they depend.