While Yale does not calculate an actual arts and sciences budget each year, its faculty of arts and sciences makes up "a pretty big chunk" of the university's budget, Long says. And since salaries and department expenses are among those most easily manipulated, the arts and sciences budget must compensate for a significant portion of the $8.8 million shortfall.

Whatever methods higher education administrators settle on to compensate for financial losses, academics bemoan the toll that the recession threatens to take on many universities' faculties and programs. They say they realize, however, that in times such as these, some hard decisions must be made.

Stanford linguistics Chair William Leben called Yale's propsal to eliminate their linguistics department a "big mistake."

"It has a modern relevance and it's very interesting discipline...it's just a shame to a good university like Yale," he says.

Stanford, too, is feeling the crunch of the recession. The Palo Alto, Calif. school has a budget deficit of approximately $50 million.

"Everyone realizes that something has to be cut out," Leben says. "No one has the impression that we were doing extra things before that don't have to be done."