Wellesley Underground

Given the recent posts about Wellesley’s tuition increases and general affordability, I’m wondering: what would you cut to make Wellesley cheaper?

From the most recent annual report, the $189 million of expenses are categorized as such:

35%: Instruction and Departmental, Library, Sponsored Research

21%: Financial Aid

16%: General Institutional, Student Services

11%: Auxilliary Enterprises [this includes the residence halls and food service]

9%: Maintenance and Operations

8%: General Administration, Debt

Tuition only covers about 40% of expenses, with the rest coming from endowment returns, gifts, and grants. Sadly the annual report does not break the expenses down further.

Turning off the lights in the library and ending gift baggies for the Tanner and Ruhlman conferences are easy things to cut, but really won’t make that much of a difference. You would have to make some really big cuts in the the top categories to see much of a change at the per-student level — like cutting departments, shrinking the administration, and eliminating student programs.

What would you axe?