Fiscal 2010 Budget

Every budget is a balance of resources and needs, guided by obligations and priorities. With this document, the budget for New York University's Washington Square Campus, we are sharing with you the key elements of our budget for fiscal 2010, and the needs, priorities, and external economic forces that shaped it.

The operating budget for fiscal 2010 (which covers the period September 1, 2009 to August 31, 2010) totals $2.064 billion. This budget includes all of NYU's schools and programs other than the School of Medicine and the NYU Langone Medical Center. Here are some highlights of the budget, including charts illustrating operating revenues and expenses and the capital budget.

Major Categories of Revenue

• Tuition and fees net of financial aid account for 59% of total revenue. The budget for financial aid is 19.7% of gross tuition and fees, excluding non-credit tuition.
• Student Housing and dining contribute 11% of total operating revenue, while all other auxiliary operations account for 2% of the total.
  
• Expendable philanthropic contributions account for 5% of total revenue for operations. Gifts to endowment and gifts for construction (i.e., not expendable operations) are in addition to this total.
  
• The endowment generates an ongoing source of annual operating revenue from a distribution that is based on a rolling twelve quarter average of the endowment's market value. For fiscal 2010, the distribution is capped at the fiscal 2009 level. Endowment distributions, combined with earnings on short-term investments of operating cash balances, provide 4% of the Washington Square Campus budget. (The market value of NYU's total endowment at August 31, 2009 was approximately $2.2 billion - $1.5 billion of which was for the Washington Square campus, and $700 million was for the School of Medicine.)
• Income from commercial real estate represents 2% of the total revenue budget. 
• Sponsored research accounts for 5% of total revenue, while sponsored educational programs accounts for 4% of the total.
• Clinical income from dental patient care provides 2% of all operating revenue.
• All other sources of revenue total 6%. This category includes many relatively small items such as service payments from the School of Medicine, an annual appropriation from the State of New York, and transfers from non-operating funds.

Major Categories of Expense

• Expenditures for salaries and employee fringe benefits comprise 52% of all expenses. 
• Expenditures for operation and maintenance of the physical plant (e.g., debt service, rent, energy, cleaning, building maintenance contracts, etc.) account for 20% of the budget.
• General operating expenses account for 15% of the budget.
• Professional services and fees make up 6% of the expense budget. 
• Five percent of the budget is transferred to non-operating funds, primarily the capital fund for construction and IT projects. 
• Two percent of the budget is designated for contingency and academic investments. 

Expenditures by Purpose

• Expenditures by schools and institutes comprise 63% of all expenditures. 
• Facilities management and campus safety account for 11% of the total. 
• The direct costs of auxiliary operations account for 9% of the total budget and include the costs of student housing, dining and residential education, which comprise 7% of the University's total budget. When the fully allocated costs of facilities management and administrative operations are added, the expenses of auxiliary operations more closely match the revenue from auxiliary operations.
• Information technology services and student affairs each account for 3% of the total. 
• Provostial operations, including such units as the Offices of Admissions and Financial Aid, represent 3% of total expenditures.
• Administrative units comprise 8% of the total, and include services such as development, finance and legal.