CFO Optimistic About Berklees Future Challenges remain but Berklee is on track to rebound from the largest financial crisis in its history, says Mac Hisey, senior vice president for Administration and Finance.
By
Nick Balkin
March 8, 2021
Image by Kelly Davidson
For Berklee, 2020 was supposed to be a year of celebration, with the college's 75th anniversary, a new campus in New York City, and the introduction of its first woman president. While the past year did include these exciting milestones, they took place amidst an extraordinary moment in history, one that forced Berklee to reinvent how we work, teach, learn, perform, and create.
When the pandemic hit last year, President Roger H. Brown urged Berklee to come together and do what it does best: improvise and innovate. A Boston Conservatory at Berklee student rallied more than 70 of her peers to form a virtual orchestra whose viral video inspired millions of people around the world. The institution pivoted to remote learning, tapping into Berklee Online's near two decades of expertise to create a virtual experience worthy of students' talent and time. And when students and faculty began returning to campus in January, Berklee continued to prioritize safety by expanding health care support, reconfiguring spaces to optimize social distancing, and launching a testing protocol that is among the most rigorous in higher education.
To ease the financial burden on students, Berklee took a number of critical steps, including freezing tuition for this academic year, waiving comprehensive fees for the fall 2020 semester, and substantially increasing scholarship support, including the issuance of $2,500 grants to all students who enrolled last fall. All of these actions, along with the establishment of emergency aid funding and a robust COVID-19 health and safety infrastructure, posed daunting financial challenges.
While the institution is likely to post an operating loss this year, Berklee's financial strength coming into the pandemic has helped it to absorb that loss as it prepares for what is expected to be another difficult fiscal year. But despite these challenges, Richard Mac Hisey, Berklee's senior vice president for Administration and Finance, chief financial officer, and chief investment officer, says that Berklee's overall financial outlook is healthy. We talked to Hisey about the pandemic's impact on the budget, and Berklee's fiscal prospects in the short and long term; below are lightly edited excerpts from the conversation.
Mac Hisey, senior vice president for Administration and Finance
What were the most substantial challenges we faced in the past year? What actions did Berklee take to address those challenges? The number-one challenge and number-one priority of the past year was supporting the health and safety of the Berklee community. To address this, we set up a dedicated committee to, one, vacate our campus with the onset of the pandemic, support our transition to virtual learning, and immediately issue credits and refunds to our students for unused room and board and comprehensive fees; two, design a COVID-19 safety infrastructure utilizing industry best practices; and three, plan for the reopening of our campus with appropriate modifications to our physical spaces, including the implementation of best-practice protocols, the introduction of an on-site testing center run by Tufts Medical Center with support from the Broad Institute, and the introduction of new integrated technologies to support a safe campus. Our staff and faculty have worked tirelessly and closely together to support the health and safety of our community and the optimization of our learning environments to maintain the continuation of our students' academic progress.
All of the tough decisions and hard work of the past year will support our continuing financial strength, the health and safety of our community, and the high quality of the Berklee educational experience.
-Mac Hisey
How seriously has the coronavirus affected our budget? Are there numbers you can share that illustrate that impact? COVID-19 and all of the actions we have taken in response to the pandemic produced the largest financial challenge that Berklee has ever faced. In total, we faced a financial shortfall of over $70 million, which is over 20 percent of our budget. Thanks to the tireless efforts of our community, we have successfully offset over 75 percent of that shortfall. We were able to do this through reductions across all expense categories. Unfortunately, given that faculty and staff salaries are our largest cost, this also necessitated the introduction of mandatory staff furloughs, which has had an undeniable impact on our community.
How would you describe Berklee's financial outlook, currently and into next year? As noted, we expect to record an operating loss for the year, but have the financial strength to absorb that loss. I would also note that Berklee Online has experienced very strong growth in this environment, providing thousands of students with a high-quality online experience. Berklee Online's success has been both strategic and financial, helping to lower the loss we anticipate for this year.
Berklees COVID-19 Testing Center
Image by Cristian Avila
Looking forward, we fully expect the pandemic to continue to impact us financially into next fiscal year (starting on June 1) and are planning accordingly. We are very encouraged by recent news of accelerated vaccine distribution, but nevertheless anticipate some continuing impacts on enrollment and the need to maintain our COVID-19 infrastructure for some period of time to support the health of our community. So, while we are all very excited about having all of our students back for the on-campus experience, we do expect some continuing impacts from the pand
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
02/05/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
06/04/2026
Michigan legends bring a new voice to the broadcast as TNT Sports and CBS Sports...
06/04/2026
From high school sports all the way up to the major leagues, building high-quali...
06/04/2026
Quickplay, an AI company for the media and entertainment industry, has been accepted into the Advanced tier of the TwelveLabs Ecosystem Partner Program. Quickpl...
06/04/2026
Grass Valley has announced the Future Playmakers Program, a global initiative to...
06/04/2026
El l der de operaciones impulsa la producci n en estudio mientras encuentra insp...
06/04/2026
The ops leader helps lead the charge in studio for the Spanish-language broadcas...
06/04/2026
Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, includ...
06/04/2026
The National Hockey League (NHL), in partnership with Verizon and the New Jersey Devils, today announced the opening of the NHL Innovation Lab powered by Verizo...
06/04/2026
Rock League, a new professional curling league, has announced that ESPN+ will stream its inaugural 2026 season for fans in the United States. The first Rock Lea...
06/04/2026
Advanced Systems Group has announced the appointment of Andrea (Andy) Cummis as Vice President of Systems Design and Engineering. In this role, she will lead de...
06/04/2026
Backed by Bolt Ventures, the venture brings Bryson DeChambeau, Grant Horvat, and...
06/04/2026
With this environment we can start that collaboration even earlier because we ca...
06/04/2026
Like the immortal lives of vampires, some stories never really end. That's t...
06/04/2026
As podcasting continues to evolve, growth increasingly means building beyond aud...
06/04/2026
Multiband dynamics plug-in enhanced
California-based developer FSK Audio have released a significant update for their innovative multiband dynamics processo...
06/04/2026
Share official & user-created full-rig presets
IK Multimedia's latest TONEX update makes it possible for users of the popular amp and effects modelling ...
06/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/04/2026
Dalet Showcases Dalia Agentic AI and End-to-End Media Workflows at NAB Show 2026
Brie Clayton April 6, 2026
0 Comments
Dalet, a leading technology and...
06/04/2026
OpenDrives Shows Off Sports Expertise in Sports Business Hub located in NAB Show...
06/04/2026
Proton to Demonstrate 3D Application at NAB 2026
Brie Clayton April 6, 2026
0 Comments
Yet further creative potential unleashed through innovation in ...
06/04/2026
Autoscript Highlights Voice-Driven Prompting and PTZ Solutions at NAB 2026
Brie Clayton April 6, 2026
0 Comments
Experience Autoscript Voice, PTZ prom...
06/04/2026
Mediaproxy Highlights Significant Enhancements to its LogServer suite at NAB Sho...
06/04/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Expands Kids Entertainment Lineup With Playground App ...
05/04/2026
Tackles all reported bugs!
SoundBridge have just announced the launch of a new update that introduces a couple of minor changes to their remote collaboratio...
04/04/2026
The University of Arizona's Men's Basketball team has only loss twice th...
04/04/2026
1080p HDR arrives, a new generation of storytelling tools takes center stage, an...
04/04/2026
Michigan legends bring a new voice to the broadcast as TNT Sports and CBS Sports...
04/04/2026
Faster, cleaner and more intuitive than ever
The control software for Flock Audio's digitally controlled patchbay systems has just been treated to an up...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
DHD Introduces AI-Based Audio Noise Reduction to XD3 IP Core
Brie Clayton April 3, 2026
0 Comments
The accompanying image shows the rear panel of the ...
04/04/2026
Macnica Redefines ST 2110 Flexibility with Two Speeds on One Card
Brie Clayton April 3, 2026
0 Comments
New for NAB Show 2026, MEP100 SmartNIC now sup...
04/04/2026
Unified Media Workflows for Story-Centric Production
Brie Clayton April 3, 2026
0 Comments
Framelight X unifies field capture, editing and publishing ...
03/04/2026
Michigan's Fab Five will reunite for an alternate presentation of the Mich...
03/04/2026
Avid will exhibit at NAB Show 2026 (April 18-22, Booth N2226, Las Vegas Convention Center), demonstrating its Content Core platform and new AI-driven workflow c...
03/04/2026
Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) has announced the appointment of Nick Barthee as Chief Operating Officer.
The announcement follows MRMC's transition fro...
03/04/2026
Interra Systems has announced that Elite Media Technologies has selected its BATON file-based QC solution for media workflows. Elite Media Technologies speciali...
03/04/2026
Ateme has announced that Moldtelecom has deployed Ateme technologies across its streaming workflow, covering encoding, delivery, operations, and analytics.
Mol...
03/04/2026
Grass Valley will demonstrate Framelight X, its content management platform, at NAB Show 2026. The platform connects capture, ingest, editing, and publishing in...
03/04/2026
Encompass Digital Media and Techex have announced a cloud-native Master Control ...
03/04/2026
Live Vertical Video automatically track the action on the court via AI technology and delivers a fully optimized, 9 16 live feed for viewers...
03/04/2026
As the Illini make their first trip to college basketball's biggest stage si...
CFO Optimistic About Berklees Future Challenges remain but Berklee is on track to rebound from the largest financial crisis in its history, says Mac Hisey, senior vice president for Administration and Finance.
