Is it 2009-2010 or 1972-1973? If you're paying college tuition this year, it may be hard to tell. Tuition is up only 4.3% for the coming school year, the lowest rate of growth in 37 years, according to a survey of 350 private schools by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. This is down substantially from the 5.9% increase for the 2008-2009 school year. Of course, this is for tuition only and does not include room and board inflation.

Before celebrating, though, remember that depressed housing prices and constrained financial markets make it tougher to dip into home equity to pay for school (a favorite strategy of the past few years), and layoffs are putting an obvious strain on household finances. So, the bargain in all this may be hard to find, even with financial aid increases of 9.2%.

This is not your father's recession, and it's not your typical recession, and the investment world has received yet another data point confirming the above.

Yale University, investors -- not a community college in Kansas, but Yale -- will lay-off as many as 300 employees as the economic downturn forces the Ivy League school to trim its operating budget, the Yale Daily News reported.

Reuters reports that Ray Fair, a Yale University economist who has been predicting elections with remarkable accuracy over the last several decades, is calling for an Obama victory on November 4. How so? The economy is in the tank. And his model predicts that a strong economy benefits the party of the incumbent and a weak one is great for the challenger.

Fair's model predicts Obama will win 52.2% of the vote to McCain's 47.8%, according to Reuters. And that's based on a relatively optimistic set of economic assumptions. In April, Fair ran the numbers assuming U.S. economic growth of 1.5% and a 3% rate of inflation. But in the fourth quarter of 2007, GDP growth was revised to a negative 0.2%. And despite 0.9% growth in the first quarter and 1.9% growth in the second quarter, it would not surprise me to see those numbers revised into negative territory. Meanwhile, inflation, most recently roaring ahead at 5%, is way above Fair's prediction.

Another similar model developed by Macroeconomic Advisers -- which Reuters reports has correctly predicted the winning party 12 out of 14 times -- uses more recent data to suggest that in light of the dismal economic conditions McCain will get 45% of the vote in November. Who knows whether these models will work for this election? In the meantime, they suggest that the worse the economy gets, the better it is for Obama.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.

In fascinating endowment news yesterday, Harvard University turned to one of its former investment stars to take the helm of the Ivy League's biggest endowment of $35 billion.

Currently chief investment officer at Wellesley College, Jane Mendillo has been tapped o become the president and chief executive of Harvard Management Company. She fills in the slot vacated by Mohamed El-Erian, the emerging market bond guru, who left last year after less than two years in the job to return to his previous post with Bill Gross' PIMCO.

Famed uber-investor Jack Meyer racked up impressive returns in his tenure at Harvard Management Company during the 1990s. According to Wikipedia, Meyer grew an endowment "worth $4.8 billion to a value of $25.9 billion (including new contributions). During the last decade of his tenure, the endowment earned an annualized return of 15.9%."

Not too shabby.

It's great to see a woman take over the helm of such a high-profile investment fund. The best part of this whole move is that Mendillo is a Yale grad!

Zack Miller is the managing editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund.

David Swensen has led Yale's endowment to phenomenal results since taking charge in 1988. According to the New York Times, his advice for individual investors is simple: "use index funds, exchange-traded funds and other low-cost instruments, and stick to your long-term asset allocation -- even when the markets are in tumult."

What's interesting about the Times interview is that Mr. Swensen decided to use it as an opportunity to take some shots at Mad Money host Jim Cramer: "There is nothing that Cramer says that can help people make intelligent decisions. He takes something that is very serious and turns it into a game. If you want to have fun, go to Disney World."

Mr. Swensen sure did manage to come across as an aristocratic snob. But I'm actually inclined to agree with him to a certain extent: I would never follow Cramer's stock picks. I think he gives way, way too many tips. But I do watch Mad Money regularly because Jim Cramer is a really smart guy and has been down in the trenches of money management. Some of his broader ideas are useful, and let's face it: his is one of the few really entertaining shows on CNBC.

From June 30, 2006 to June 30, 2007, Harvard's endowment returned 23%. With the market up less than 20% and the median institutional fund up 17.7%, these returns would be impressive for any hedge fund. But Harvard's endowment isn't a hedge fund. It's a diversified pool of investments totaling nearly $35 billion. This type of outperformance on $35 billion is unbelievable.

Huge outperformance at Harvard's endowment has allowed its size to surge above Yale's endowment, which amounts to just $18 billion. Harvard has become increasingly reliant on its endowment to cover costs related to running the school, according to the AP.

Interestingly, Yale's endowment manager David Swenson recently wrote a book, Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment, in which he essentially advocated a diversified portfolio of index funds for the average investor.

Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine just published its ranking of the "best values" in private colleges. The rankings featured two lists: one for the top liberal arts colleges, which offer mostly undergraduate programs, and the other for universities, which also offer graduate degrees.

As a sophomore of Amherst College, I was not surprised to see Swarthmore, Williams, and Amherst round out the top three colleges. Cal Tech, Yale, and Harvard topped the list for the top three universities.

Like many private institutions across the nation, Swarthmore uses its own calculation, in addition to the federal government's formula, to determine who qualifies for need-based aid. "We really want to know your situation and give a fair assessment," says James Bock, the financial aid director at Swarthmore college. The result can be surprising. "People can qualify for aid with incomes of $140,000 and above."

Not only does Swarthmore and these highly competitive liberal arts colleges offer a great education and financial aid packages, but they seem also to come with a degree of social conscience, e.g., the capacity to "change the world energy." Scott Storm, chose Swarthmore because he "wanted a place that was going to be very aware of social and civic responsibilities. One example that was noted was that Swarthmore sent "Swatties" to New Orleans to gut houses and to China to work in Aids clinics.

College courses are now becoming available on the Internet. Some are available for free while some cost money. Earlier today, Zac Bissonnette posted about MIT's "OpenCourse Ware" and this is certainly not the only resource for free college class notes. For example, Yale too has announced intentions to make certain courses available for free over the Internet. These schools are making courses free under the Open Educational Resources Initiative. Basically, this program hopes to make the world's knowledge more available to all.

However, several questions emerge. First, will the creation of these free online courses hurt companies like The Teaching Company? I have purchased lecture series from The Teaching Company and I was very satisfied. But I'd happily choose free courses (if they fit my interests) over their somewhat expensive courses (although ridiculously cheap when compared to the cost of college these days). In addition, and more importantly, will the creation of free online courses help those who are underprivileged rise to higher levels? This question brings up the more important issue: is it the knowledge or the name that is gained by attending an Ivy League school? If it is indeed the knowledge that justifies the hefty prices, than those who are committed could certainly stand to do very well. However, if those who attend Ivy League schools receive more job offers and so on simply because of the name on the resume then this creation of "free courses" won't help those who don't beyond expanding their knowledge.