At Yale University, presidents serve terms averaging 14 years. Benno C. Schmidt Jr. was in office for only six.

Schmidt says he left because of the exciting opportunity he was offered as the head of the Edison Project, which would be the first national, for-profit system of private schools in the United States.

"I would not leave Yale were it not for the unique challenge of setting this vitally important and desperately needed change in motion," Schmidt says.

The 20th president of Yale will be in charge of developing the school system, which will provide education at costs equivalent to those of public schools. The project, a partnership of Whittle Communications, Time Warner Inc., Phillips Electronics, N.V. and Associated Newspapers Holding Limited, will change the way Americans are educated, Edison officials say.

Still, Schmidt's resignation, which he announced to the governing Yale Corporation the morning of commencement, came as a great surprise to nearly everyone. And while the move has inspired some to look ahead at the future of primary and secondary education, it has also driven many to look back at Schmidt's accomplishments as president of Yale.

His greatest accomplishments, as well as his greatest failings, centered on money.

Schmidt, age 50, launched a $1.5 billion fund drive in May, and has raised $600 million of that goal already. He is the most successful fundraiser in Yale history.

But most of Schmidt's toughest times in office have also had to do with money. He devoted most of his six years as president to painful efforts to guide Yale through trying economic times for higher education.

Frank M. Turner's five years as Yale provost overlapped with Schmidt's provost overlapped with Schmidt's tenure as president.

"They've been interesting years when Yale has begun to confront issues in higher education," Turner says.

High among those issues are financial constraints, Turner says.

"We must in the long run bring our academic programs to mesh with our income base," Turner says of the larger private institutions.

Turner, who will return to the history department at Yale on June 30, says he was especially concerned with the path Yale was taking toward "fiscal responsibility and academic distinction, as the institution responds to the changing financial climate affecting all American higher education."

Especially this past year, administrators recommended cutting faculty and trimming departments at the university to ease a fiscal crisis, according to Rose O. Stone, executive assistant to the dean of Yale College.

The faculty rejected these initial recommendations, and formed a second committee to reassess the proposed cuts.