Notebook: February 19, 1997
Student Fees Increase to $29,435
The university's budget-setting Priorities Committee has recommended an increase in undergraduate tuition, room, and board of 3.9 percent, bringing the price of a Princeton education for the 1997-98 academic year to $29,435.
The 3.9 percent rise in the comprehensive fee, while running ahead of a national inflation rate of 2.9 percent, is the lowest in 30 years and continues a five-year effort to reduce the annual rate of increase in student costs.
Undergraduate tuition will go up 4.2 percent, to $22,920, while room and board will rise 3 percent, to $2,987 and $3,528, respectively. Graduate students, whose fee totals are approximately the same as those of undergraduates, face comparable increases.
In its annual report, issued January 15, the Priorities Committee noted that its recommendations reflect a long-standing commitment by the Board of Trustees and President Shapiro to reduce the rate of increase in student fees, which has declined from 6.7 percent in 1990-91; last year's increase was 4.6 percent.
The committee presented a balanced budget for next year totaling $580.8 million, including $62 million for the federally funded Plasma Physics Laboratory. Just a year ago, the committee had projected a deficit for 1997-98 of $4 million, but budget reductions and better-than-expected results from Annual Giving and income from sponsored research have put the university in the black, with an expected surplus for this fiscal year of $200,000. The committee, however, tempered this news with concern about funding several major capital projects including a new stadium, campus center, and dormitory
Although the number of university employees is expected to decrease in coming years, compensation to keep quality faculty and staff is considered vital to the university's health. For 1997-98, an addition of $1,052,000 was recommended for the salary pools, almost double last year's addition of $525,000.
Of the funding requests put before the committee, recommendations were made to add $193,000 to the graduate school budget for fellowships, directed specifically toward raising "prize" stipends for incoming students; a $10,000 increase to the current $24,500 budget for club sports, in response to an almost 50-percent increase in student participation; and an allocation of $31,000 to allow greater flexibility in undergraduate meal contracts.
Alumni Art Through the Ages
Some 370 works of art, including Wassily Kandinsky and Irma Bossi by Gabriele Münter (pictured), will be part of "In Celebration: Works of Art from the Collections of Princeton Alumni and Friends of The Art Museum," opening February 22 at the University Art Museum. The exhibition was organized in honor of the 250th anniversary. The more than 200 collectors range from an honorary member of the Class of 1920 to an undergraduate in the Class of 2000. Lenders also include Princeton parents, grandparents, children, and grandchildren of alumni, as well as members of the university faculty and staff and other supporters of the museum. The exhibition covers European and American works from the 14th through 20th centuries, including folk art; decorative arts from the 19th and 20th centuries; photographs by Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz; paintings by Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Winslow Homer, Frank Stella '58, and Nancy Graves; representations of Asian, pre-Columbian, Native American, and African art; and ancient Near Eastern and Classical antiquities. The exhibit runs through June 8.
In Memoriam: Donald Stokes '51
Donald E. Stokes '51, who served for 18 years as dean of the Woodrow Wilson School, died of acute leukemia on January 26 at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia. He was 69.
A specialist in public-opinion research who was known for his studies of American and British voting behavior, Stokes had been the Class of 1943 University Professor of Politics and Public Affairs since 1979. He came to Princeton as the third dean of the Woodrow Wilson School in 1974, after 17 years on the faculty of the University of Michigan, where he also served as dean of the graduate school.
"Don Stokes was a pioneer in the development of modern political science and a distinguished builder of academic programs, both at Princeton and previously at the University of Michigan," said President Shapiro, a former faculty member at Michigan and its president from 1980 to 1988.
At Princeton, Stokes built a strong graduate and professional program in public affairs in close collaboration with departments of arts and sciences. The faculty of the Wilson School almost doubled in size during his tenure. The graduate program developed an interdisciplinary core curriculum, the undergraduate program increased the number of majors and interdisciplinary courses, and the research program was strengthened through the revitalization of the Center of International Studies and the establishment of the Center of Domestic and Comparative Policy Studies.
Stokes stepped down as dean in 1992 but continued as an active member of the faculty. In recent years, he studied the science policies of the federal government and the relationship between basic and applied science.
In 1981 and 1991, Stokes served the state of New Jersey as the tie-breaking "public" member of the Legislative Appointment Commission, which rearranges the boundaries of voting districts to reflect shifts in population detected in the decennial census. In 1996, he received the Elmer B. Staats Award for a distinguished career in public service from the National Association of Schools of Public Adminsitration.
Stokes earned his doctorate in political science at Yale and taught at the University of Michigan from 1958 to 1974. He served Michigan as chairman of the political-science department in 1970-71 and as dean of the graduate school from 1971 to 1974.
For Bill Clinton's Second Term, It's STILL the Economy (Joseph E. Stiglitz)
The mantra that propelled Bill Clinton to the White House in 1992-"It's the economy, stupid"-remains a touchstone for the challenges that face his administration as he begins his second term. Yet Clinton's original promise to focus on domestic rather than foreign affairs seems out-of-date in an era when the answers to the problems of underemployment and rising inequality may be found by pursuing faraway markets.
These are some of the conclusions drawn from a conference held on campus last November. Organized by the Princeton-based Center for Economic Policy Studies (CEPS), the two-day gathering of economists and business executives examined long-run trends in the U.S. economy.
Joseph E. Stiglitz, a former member of the faculty who at the time of the conference was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, set the tone. In his keynote address, Stiglitz put into historical perspective the nation's sluggish productivity-a concern of economists since the 1970s-by noting that, if anything, the real aberration was the expansion of the national economy in the two postwar decades. Still, Stiglitz warned that the slow growth of productivity presents a challenge in both policy and politics as the Clinton administration and Congress sort out what to do about the coming retirement of the baby boomers.
"It is harder to balance the budget over the long term, especially when supporting more retired people, when productivity is slow," Stiglitz said. Americans will be reluctant to pull down trade barriers or share the wealth if they blame these demands for their own stagnant wages.
To be sure, Stiglitz added, some of the recorded slowdown in productivity is a function of mismeasurement, including the hotly debated overstatement of the Consumer Price Index. But measurement flaws, he argued, are not the sole culprit, nor do they account for the ever-widening gap between rich and poor. According to Stiglitz, Clinton has attempted to boost productivity growth by investment in training and technology, by opening markets at home and abroad, and by reducing the deficit.
(Stiglitz is no longer on hand as the new administration continues this process. A few weeks after the conference, he announced plans to take the post of chief economist at the World Bank. Attempts to woo Princeton economist and CEPS codirector Alan S. Blinder '67 back to Washington to replace Stiglitz were unsuccessful. Blinder, who recently served a term as vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, told Reuters: "I'm not going back to Washington. I'm not saying not ever, but not now.")
Free Trade
Stiglitz discussed the challenges of increased international trade, the efforts to balance the budget, and the problem of inequality, subjects that panelists later explored in further depth. Experts agreed that competition from the growing economies of East and Southeast Asia will continue to have an impact on the United States. Princeton economist Peter B. Kenen and Stanley Fischer of the International Monetary Fund also saw Latin America as a region ripe for a boom. The challenge, according to Stiglitz and others, is to help the public view increased trade as an opportunity, not the infamous "giant sucking sound" of "stolen" jobs predicted by Ross Perot and other critics of open markets.
"The lesson is that trade has much more to do with the distribution of jobs than the number of jobs," Stiglitz explained. "The number of jobs is a function of macroeconomic conditions, while the quality of these jobs is dependent on the scope of trade. It is very important that no friend of free trade get this argument wrong: Trade improves our living standards, it does not create jobs."
The Budget
Stiglitz noted that since 1992, the federal-budget deficit has been cut 63 percent-from $290 billion to $107 billion. As a share of gross domestic product, the deficit is at its lowest point in 20 years. While Republicans may argue that their toppling of Democratic majorities in the Congress in 1994 led to this result, Stiglitz said the single most important factor was the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, which raised income taxes on those in the highest income brackets. But from here on, warned Stiglitz, the nation faces tougher choices. At some point, the administration and Congress must confront rising costs in what Stiglitz called "mandatory spending" for programs such as Social Security, and Medicare. Mandatory spending, which made up a third of the budget in 1965, now accounts for close to two-thirds of federal outlays.
To balance the budget by 2002, he said, "the President has proposed cutting the real level of discretionary spending for 2002 by 11 percent from its 1995 level. It is hard to imagine cutting discretionary spending much further past its 2002 level." Keeping the budget in balance "can only be made by slowing the growth of mandatory spending." To Stiglitz, these problems might "seem intractable," but he thinks they can be solved with patience and bipartisanship. However, he did not say just how the administration would do this after campaigning on a promise to protect Medicaid and Medicare. "The challenge will be to find reforms that introduce financial restraints but do not compromise the true achievements of these programs."
Inequality
According to Stiglitz, the gap between the earnings of rich and poor is in large part a result of the increased value of additional training and education, a point explored in greater detail by Princeton economist Alan B. Krueger. Stiglitz and other speakers discussed the role that technology has played in this trend, with Krueger highlighting research that shows those who work with computers earn 15 percent more than those who do not.
The quality jobs Americans will get in the future will depend on how prepared they are for the jobs that will be in demand. The assembled experts agreed that the best jobs will go to the highly skilled, while low-skilled workers will continue to compete with laborers from developing countries. The challenge will be to convince Americans to make needed investments in education at a time when more and more households have no children-and families with the most children are more likely to be minorities.
Stiglitz concluded, "Fiscal constraints mean that government cannot do everything. Instead of viewing this as a problem, I view it as an opportunity to redefine our mission to focus on those tasks which are uniquely the government's responsibility. And the most general responsibility is ensuring that all Americans have the opportunity to live up to their potential."
-Mary Caffrey
Bradley Papers
Bill Bradley '65 has placed on deposit at Princeton the papers from his 18 years in the U.S. Senate, from which he retired this year, and from his earlier career in basketball. A former Rhodes scholar, Bradley holds 25 Princeton basketball records, captained the 1964 U.S. Olympic team, and played professionally with the New York Knicks from 1967 to 1977. He was elected to the Senate in 1978 as a Democrat from New Jersey. The papers are being stored in the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, and for now, access to them is restricted to Bradley or his representatives.
In Brief
Honors: Professor of Mathematics Yakov Sinai has been named one of two winners of the Wolf Prize in mathematics for 1997, and John Wheeler, a professor of physics, emeritus, has won the prize in physics. Sinai, who will share the $100,000 prize with Joseph Keller of Stanford University, was cited by the Wolf Foundation for "his fundamental contributions to mathematically rigorous methods in statistical mechanics and the ergodic theory of dynamical systems and their applications in physics." Wheeler was cited for his "seminal contributions to black hole physics, quantum gravity, and the theories of nuclear scattering and nuclear fission." The prizes are awarded annually by the president of Israel at a ceremony in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. Toni Morrison, a professor in the humanities, was honored in November with a National Book Foundation Medal for her contributions to American letters. Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature and author of Beloved, Jazz, and Song of Solomon, is a two-time finalist for the National Book Awards.
Study commission: Professor of History Harold James is part of a nine-member independent commission that began work in January investigating Swiss banks suspected of laundering gold looted by the Nazis from central European states and serving as repositories for assets confiscated from Jews. The commission also is studying charges that Swiss bankers assisted Nazis in funneling money to South America. The Swiss Parliament established the panel in December, 1996, and named four international members, including James, a British citizen. Although Swiss government archives previously were open to historians, until now the country's banking privacy laws prevented historians from searching records of commercial institutions.