N.C. Central University is dipping deeper into its endowment than is customary to help its cash-strapped students cope with the rising cost of college.

The university will spend about 8.5 percent of its $19 million endowment next year, a  jump from the standard 5.5 percent it usually takes each year. Doing so will yield an extra $142,000 that the university will use for scholarships.

(image courtesy citytown.com)

At a university where more than 90 percent of students receive financial aid, the extra money is expected to benefit 142 students who will receive grants of $1,000 each.

A committee of the university's trustee board approved the unusual move Tuesday, and the full board will likely give its blessing Wednesday.

NCCU and most universities generally take 5 or 5.5 percent of its endowment each year, based on a three-year rolling average, for scholarships and other uses. But mounting budget cuts and rising college costs prompted the move, officials said Tuesday during meetings of the university's board of trustees.

Read Wednesday's News & Observer for more.

Duke University's endowment, like so many others at universities across the nation, took a massive hit this year. It's down 19 percent since July 1.

Still, some folks there see opportunity and plan to continue recruiting top faculty, even while looking for ways to tighten other forms of spending.

Read more here.

Man, times are tough financially. Even Harvard is hurting for bucks!

The world's richest university, with an endowment not long ago valued at nearly $37 billion, is dealing with the same financial struggles as you and I, according to the Boston Globe. 

Of course, everything being relative, Harvard won't be going out of business anytime soon, but its whopper of an endowment is rumored to have lost around $11 billion due to the nation's financial swoon.  

That's a lot for any institution to handle, no matter how austere, robust or successful.

As a result, the university is talking budget cuts. Sound familiar, North Carolina?

Duke University's endowment made money in fiscal 2008. That's a good thing given the current financial times and the fact that holdings at many universities aren't doing that good.

So said Duke President Richard Brodhead earlier this week in a letter to the Duke community. In it, he reports that the endowment, with a value of about $6 billion, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, increased 6.2 percent last year. That's a far cry from the usual annual rate of growth, but not bad given the economic slowdown.

"Indeed, though the past few months' results have not been positive, over the past 10 years the Duke University endowment has grown at an average annual rate of 15.6 percent, which places it among the top performers of all university endowments," Brodhead said. 

The endowment's steady growth has allowed the university to invest in financial aid, faculty, programs and facilities, Brodhead added.