Here’s a nice look at recession, courtesy of globalhighered. To figure out how recessions impact universities, Moody’s published a report looking at several variables, from enrollment to endowments.

The key chart shows enrollment surges during recessions:

But globalhighered’s Susan Robertson asks a very revealing question:

Is the University of Sydney, or the University of Wisconsin-Madison, public or private given that both receive around 14-18% of their core budget from government funding?

As with globalization’s impact on everything from national boundaries to legal definitions: the more advanced the economy, the more integrated it is. If a state school gets 89% of its money from its endowment, is it still a state school?