Everyone (at least everyone in my little corner of the world) says that universities are the safest places to be in a bad economy. People will always want to go to college, and when they can't find jobs, they want to go to grad school. This is mostly true, although there's some question now about whether students without funding could even get student loans... The real problem is that universities, especially private universities, rely on endowments. And endowments rely on two things: (1) earning money on interest and investments; (2) rich donors with lots of money from interest and investments donating more money. Obviously, this economy is not so favorable to either of those. Rumors have been running rampant at my university that there would be massive budget cuts, but no one has yet known what that would mean. Well, I still don't know what that will mean, but I do know now that I need to cut my budget and that we're going to give out even fewer fellowships this year than usual. Oh joy. I *think* my job is safe, at least for a while, but it's getting scary here. And everywhere, I suppose.