Princeton slashes budget as endowment tanks

According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), the university will cut expenses by capping raises for its highest-paid employees at $2,000 and reducing administrative budgets by 5%. Princeton will also look more carefully at any new hiring decision and defer capital projects to save more than $300 million over 10 years.
To its credit, Princeton is managing to combine the plunge in the endowment with a cost of attendance increase of just 2.9% -- its smallest increase in 43 years. Granted the school tips the scales at $45,695 per year, but a slow in the rate of increase is a start.
Hopefully other colleges grappling with declining state aid or tanking endowments will recognize that now is not the time for big hikes in student costs. They need to find a way to do something that hasn't been done in academia in a long time: Cut costs!