University of Virginia Library

XX. Finances

The expansion in the University's receipts as well as in
its disbursements, during the Eighth Period, 1896–1904,
as compared with that for the Seventh Period, 1865–
1895, is foreshadowed in the figures recorded for the session
of 1896–97,—the income for that year amounted
to $138,546.86, and the outlay, to $139,198.48. Of the
receipts, $50,000 was derived from the State in the form
of the customary annuity, and $21,490 in the form of interest
from the following endowments,—Corcoran, Miller,
Linden Kent, Fayerweather, Observatory, Madison,
Gordon, Brown, and Mason. About $53,950 was obtained
in the shape of fees paid by the students. Turning
to the disbursements, we find that they were made to
defray the current charges. The most voluminous of

these were the salaries of professors and instructors
amounting to $71,500. The items in the annual budget
of expenses were $5,954 paid to the officers of the University
and $2,000 paid to its employees. The outlay for
the interest on the debt was $15,170, and for current repairs,
$8,000. The strictly operative charges already
reached as high a figure as $10,910. The scholarships
absorbed about $1,080; the sinking fund, about $4,050;
and miscellaneous calls about $4,650.

The University of Virginia, in 1901, possessed the following
securities: The Corcoran Fund, $100,000; the
Madison Fund, $2,600; the Gordon Fund, $5,000; the
Mason Fund, $7,000; the Observatory Fund, $86,500;
the Miller Fund, $100,000; the Kent Fund, $60,000; the
sinking fund, $66,900; the Birely Fund, $4,500; the Byrd
Library Fund, $10,000; the Paul Fund, $400.00; the
Bryan Fund, $250.00; miscellaneous, $600.00. The
bonded debt consisted of a mortgage for $200,000, and
general obligations to the extent of $69,500. In October,
1901, the trust funds, with legacies yet to mature, belonging
to the University, amounted to $900,000.

During the session of 1897–98, the annuity received
from the State was reduced to $45,000. After the
Great Fire, the General Assembly had increased the annual
appropriation to $50,000, of which sum $10,000
was to be set aside to pay the interest on the money
which the Board had been authorized to borrow for the
restoration of the buildings, namely $200,000. During
the session of 1899–1900, the annuity of $45,000 was
raised again to $50,000. Ten thousand dollars of this
amount was still to be used in defraying the charges for
interest on the Restoration Fund. The remainder had
been granted by the Legislature on the specific condition
that all students from Virginia should still be admitted

without any outlay for tuition. There was at this time
no provision made for diminishing the volume of the Restoration
mortgage bonds by the establishment of a separate
sinking fund,—the only reserve was credited annually
to the sinking fund created for the gradual liquidation
of the original debt of $69,500. This reserve fund
was obtained by holding back a portion of the annuity
paid by the State, the remainder of which was expended in
the payment of the insurance premiums, the cost of repairs
of buildings, the salaries of executive officers, wages
of employees, and the charges for heating and lighting.

It was calculated that, during the Eighth Period, 1896–
1904, the University of Virginia either kept within the
State, or brought within its borders, a sum which was
equal to the amount of the annuity many times duplicated.
The total annual payments by students from this Commonwealth,
either directly to the University itself, or
to colleges of the State in anticipation of entering its
classes, did not fall below $280,000, if every branch of
expenditure by them was embraced in the estimate. Taking
the outlay for one purpose or another, in the course
of a single year, the sum paid by the whole number of
students, irrespective of the Commonwealths from which
they registered, was thought to be as much as $300,000.
This was six times the amount which the General Assembly
appropriated annually to the University; and it was
an amount which would have been entirely lost to the
State's resources had not that institution been in existence
to draw these young men to Virginia, or to hold them
there, if they were natives of its soil.

The daughter of the donor of the Austin bequest possessed
the testamentary right to dispose of the income
accruing from it during her life, but she generously released
her claim upon $10,000 of that income in favor of

the University, to which otherwise it would have gone
only after her death had taken place.

For the fiscal year ending with the session of 1901–2,
the receipts of the institution amounted to $157,169.21,
and the expenditures to $157,899.19. The salaries of
the professors now absorbed $75,350, and those of the officers,
$5,850. The amount needed for the payment of
interest on the debt, together with the annual additions to
the sinking fund, was $21,287; for wages, $7,692; for operating
expenses, $17,320, and for miscellaneous charges,
$25,650. The State was still appropriating an annuity
of fifty thousand dollars. The estimated expenses for
the fiscal year ending with the session of 1903–4 were,
$147,768, and the estimated income, $149,939.