A Letter from the President

March 27, 2009

Dear Member of the Berklee Community,

	President Roger H. Brown
	Photo by Phil Farnsworth

I would like to give you some important news concerning Berklee and our response to the economic downturn.

On March 26, the Board of Trustees approved our budget for the fiscal year June 2009-May 2010. We have asked every area of the college to budget cautiously and conservatively for next year, and thanks to the cooperative efforts of all, we are forecasting a balanced budget. To achieve this, we have cut non-academic operating expenses by around 5 percent and kept spending for academic programs just about level.

This will allow us to dramatically expand student financial aid and scholarships, which combined are up over 24 percent or just about $5 million more than in last year's budget. In addition, we will add $2.4 million to our Perkins loan pool, to offer additional loans to students and their families with financial need. These measures are intended to do all that we can to allow our talented students to continue their Berklee education, despite hardships that many families face.

Next week, we will communicate with current students, and students accepted for the fall, to explain how they can make themselves eligible for these additional sources of support.

Berklee has traditionally published tuitions more than a year in advance (unlike most colleges which do so a few months in advance) to give families maximum visibility on tuition increases. Last summer, our published tuition for fall of 2009 was an 8 percent increase over the prior year, part of a plan to move our tuition closer to the median level for comparable institutions.

Yesterday, the Board of Trustees voted to reduce that increase to about 6.2 percent. Even with this increase, our tuition will still be significantly below those of our peer institutions: other private, four-year music colleges. Most of the proceeds of this increase will help fund the multi-million dollar expansion of financial aid, allowing Berklee to maintain a socioeconomically diverse student body. In addition, we will be renovating the 7 Haviland building to create eight new classrooms and an expanded home for our music business, music therapy, and liberal arts departments.

Our admissions office reports that applications are up about 11 percent overall and early action applications up 37 percent. So, despite the economic challenges, we anticipate that we will be able to assemble one of the most talented entering classes in our history. Berkleemusic, our online extension school, continues to show strong growth in enrollment, and won an unprecedented fifth straight award for best on-line course in America. Thanks to many generous gifts, our City Music program continues to grow — now serving 14 cities — and allows more young people access to music education and scholarship support to come to Berklee.

As I reported in my last letter to the community, our endowment has suffered declines consistent with the experience of most colleges in the United States. As a result, the contribution of our endowment to operating funds will decline in coming years, and thus create the need to continue to budget and manage tightly.

Our Giant Steps capital campaign has already achieved gifts and pledges of $34.4 million towards our 2011 goal of $50 million. While fundraising has proven more challenging in this economy, we are gratified that we continue to see gifts, both large and small, from those committed to Berklee's efforts to elevate and enrich jazz and contemporary music education. While we have always appreciated the generosity of donors, gifts in this economy are particularly inspiring.

Fortunately, we had no money invested with any fraudulent funds, and our investment committee had made several additional prudent decisions. These included issuing long-term fixed rate bonds, and moving our cash into more secure assets, long before the stock market dove in September.

Overall, I am very confident that Berklee is finding the right balance of caution in these hard times, while continuing to invest in improving the quality of our education and the opportunities available to our students. If you are a student with financial need, please see the financial aid office to explore these new opportunities. If you are an alumnus, help us spread the word about the great things happening at Berklee. To faculty and staff: thank you for your hard work and willingness to make Berklee an even better institution. I believe we will emerge from this recession better able to serve the needs of our talented, creative students.

Yours,

Roger H. Brown, President
Berklee College of Music