These past few months, the pandemic has wreaked immense and unexpected changes in global financial dynamics. Schools and universities have been hit hard, leaving some to wonder: how has the Choate budget been affected, and as students and families have also encountered difficulties, how has Choate or its students helped assuage any financial troubles?
This past week, Chief Financial Officer Mr. Patrick Durbin discussed the pandemic’s impacts on the School’s budget. He said, “At the start of the pandemic, we chose to delay some of our capital improvement projects in order to see how the pandemic progressed. However, this fall, as we were able to reopen campus, we have now been able to move some of these ‘paused’ projects forward again.” Despite those initial hiccups, the Choate budget has quickly recovered, and any impacts do not appear to be long-lasting. Additionally, Mr. Durbin said that the endowment “was impacted during the spring — as was the entire global economy — but it has largely recovered and is positioned well for the future.”
Mr. Durbin also explained how the School’s spending budget has been reorganized. “We needed to move some budget items around in order to respond to the pandemic,” he said. “We awarded more financial aid to families and spent more on technology in the classroom so that those who were unable to come to campus could still participate in the classroom with those on campus. In addition, we are spending much more on cleaning and cleaning supplies, as well as on testing the community each week.” Fortunately, Mr. Durbin expressed, “most of this has been offset by reductions in spending in areas such as travel. We have also had donors generously contribute to the School’s efforts.”
Divestment is one area that has not been impacted by the pandemic, and Mr. Durbin confirmed that “the investment policy regarding fossil fuels adopted by the Board of Trustees in 2018 is still in place.” Two years ago, in response to a student-led push for divestment, the School stopped further investments into fossil fuels and committed to slowly terminate their existing investments in those areas.
All in all, Mr. Durbin believes that Choate has adapted well to these sudden circumstances and is optimistic about the future.
Graphic by Julian Hurley/The Choate News
Outside of administrative efforts, students have also played a substantial role in alleviating the financial burdens on the student body. In particular, the Independent CRH Student Relief Fund (ICSRF), founded by Mai Ly Hagan ’21 and Ula Lucas ’21, has, as of the end of September, already distributed over $20,000 to Choate students and families from the Classes of 2020—2023 to help pay for rent, bills and utilities, groceries, medical bills, and childcare costs.
Lucas spoke on the founding of the ICSRF, explaining, “The ICSRF is a mutual aid network at Choate. Our goal is to provide immediate financial assistance to Choate students who have been significantly impacted by the pandemic, specifically low-income Choate students.” The ICSRF has played an especially significant role in establishing and strengthening the Choate community, because, as Lucas said, “it has been able to help in ways that the School itself cannot.”
As a non-profit institution, Lucas explained, “Choate is limited in the ways through which it can distribute financial aid. One stipulation is that the financial aid must be given for an academic purpose: for example, tuition support or study-abroad trips. From the outset, the ICSRF’s goal has been to provide non-academic financial relief to Choate students. We hope to help combat things like food and housing insecurity and to help pay for medical expenses, family expenses, and childcare. Essentially, we seek to provide monetary support for the areas that the School with its limitations as a non-profit is unable to cover.”
Already, the fund’s impact is quantifiable; on the fund’s Instagram page, its leaders have published several posts detailing anonymous testimonials from students and parents who have been the recipients of grants from the ICSRF.
“It has been truly inspiring for myself and everyone else involved to see the ways that the Choate community came together in a time of great need,” Lucas said. “It warmed my heart to see the involvement of everyone: not only students, but also alumni, faculty and staff, and parents.”
Lucas notes that the fund is still accepting requests from students who are facing financial hardship due to the pandemic. She asks for members of the community to continue spreading awareness and making donations. The committee is also looking to host fall fundraising campaigns and sponsor some events on campus this term. For further information, Lucas advised students to visit crhstudentrelief.wixsite.com/join.
