Endowment Growth

a strategy for fiscal responsibility

In conjunction with its 50th and 75th anniversaries, Burroughs mounted special campaigns to build and strengthen its endowment. The impetus was the realization that tuition alone could not build and maintain the level of faculty salaries required to attract and retain outstanding teachers, provide the level of scholarship and financial aid support necessary to make Burroughs accessible to students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, and support a growing and aging physical plant.

Adding a minimum of $7 million to our endowment will increase the operating budget by at least $350,000 annually. This would enable us to:

Return to lower annual tuition increases in the 3-4% range. Market conditions in recent years have necessitated escalating tuition increases in the 5-6% range, outpacing cost of living increases for many families.
Return salary increases to the 4-5% range. Currently jbs can only support 3% increases, which in a competitive marketplace makes it difficult to recruit good new teachers and retain the ones we have.
Maintain and increase scholarship support. In recent years, the financial aid budget has been consistently over spent, barely meeting the documented financial needs of the increasing number of families who qualify for aid — more than 20% of our families.
Pay for the costs associated with new buildings and property.

Market conditions in the 1980s and 1990s strengthened the endowment. Endowment interest revenue that flowed into the school made up more than 15% of the operating budget at its peak in the late 1990s, second only to tuition revenue. More recent world events and uncertain market conditions, which have adversely affected our endowment, underscore the importance of this revenue source. In the long term, increasing our endowment remains the key to strengthening the school while keeping tuition affordable.