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
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
06/12/2025
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A new survey from Pixitmedia by Datacore revealed a major shift in the Media & Entertainment industry in media archiving, with 85% of resp...
06/12/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. LiveU has announced that the national public broadcaster Czech Television has completed one of the largest LiveU live production deployments fo...
06/12/2025
NEW YORK The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) presented the Excellence in Production Technology Emmy Award to NASA+ and Dr. Tom Leight...
05/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nati...
05/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Veritone's Sean King on the Power of Mining Video, Audio DataThe company's Data Refinery offers users total control and governance over da...
05/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: Inside the Nashville Predators' Unified, Flexible, Sca...
05/12/2025
Netflix Reaches Agreement To Acquire Warner Bros. Following Planned WBD SplitThe deal does not include WBDs sports assets like TNT Sports (US, UK, LatAm), Euros...
05/12/2025
FOX Sports Returns to Indianapolis for Primetime Broadcast of Big Ten Championsh...
05/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Digital Engagement & Monetization Workshop Tackles the ...
05/12/2025
Atlanta United Lights Up New Emory Healthcare Studio With First Live Broadcast f...
05/12/2025
As Messi Takes the Pitch, MLS, Apple, NEP Roll Out Largest MLS Cup Production Ev...
05/12/2025
ESPN Enters College Football's Most Intense Month With Elevated Workflows fo...
05/12/2025
It's about that time! Awards season is in full swing, and the Film Independe...
05/12/2025
Every year, Spotify Wrapped offers a personalized look back at the audio that defined your year. It's a snapshot of your listening habits, designed to tell ...
05/12/2025
In 2025, Spotify's EQUAL, GLOW, and RADAR programs celebrated women, LGBTQIA , and emerging artists who turned moments into milestones. From breaking record...
05/12/2025
In our latest blog, we explain how Wi-Fi 7 rollouts can drive consumer loyalty with value-add services such as consumer cybersecurity. We also explore how this ...
05/12/2025
LOS ANGELES Netflix announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Nielsens Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-si...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK In an most important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public c...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Pass the turkey. Pass the stuffing. Pass the cranberry sauce. All are common requests of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family and f...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Netflix announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has approved AT&T's $1.02 billion acquisition of spectrum from UScellular in a decision that was issued sho...
05/12/2025
The Best Coldplay Songs: 21 Tracks That Shoot for the Stars From Yellow to Viva La Vida, Fix You to Paradise, this playlist goes back to the start.
December ...
05/12/2025
Zafris Lecture Series Brings Nabil Ayers to Berklee The 32nd annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture series was held on Thursday, November 13, with guest...
05/12/2025
Friday 5 December 2025
A new Game of Thrones Tale: Official trailer for Sky Exc...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Don Lee, Lee Jin-uk, and Lalisa Manobal to Star in Netflix Act...
05/12/2025
Tis the season of giving once again and this year we've taken our Give Back Fridays' concept and turned it on its head.
In the autumn we were approach...
05/12/2025
Brayden Gogis doesn't remember a time when he wasn't completely fixated on games in all forms. In preschool, when they asked us to dress up as what we ...
05/12/2025
The Grinch steals the spotlight as the theme for The Late Late Toy Show 2025
Tune in tonight at 9:35pm on RT One and worldwide on RT Player
#LateLateToyShow...
05/12/2025
RT Announces New Presenters of Flagship News Programmes
New RT Six One News co-presenter Tommy Meskill
Sarah McInerney & Justin McCarthy join Morning Ir...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & ...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir AJA Ki Pro Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & just:in linux
More Details:Starting with version 5.5, both just:in mac pro and just:in linux sol...
04/12/2025
Wangu Kanuri from Kenya and Godwin Asediba from Ghana are two of this years finalists for Thomsons Young Journalist of the Year Award. The pair are runners-up i...
04/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: ProximaVision's Claudio Lisman on Why Tethered Drones Could Be...
04/12/2025
SVG Campus Shot Callers: Imry Halevi, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, Co...
04/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: LiveU Lightweight Sports Production: A Step Change in Spor...
04/12/2025
London to Riyadh: DAZN brings the boxing glamour to new production levels for Be...
04/12/2025
Analysis: Paramount bets on the battering ram' with Champions League play By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 10:12
Print ...
04/12/2025
Space City Home Network Launches SCHN DTC App for Astros and RocketsThe Rockets and Astros were previously the lone NBA and MLB teams without a DTC appBy Jason...
04/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Content Workflows Workshop Spotlights Evolution of Spor...
04/12/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Geotech's Patrick Wambold On the Unreal Engine Revolu...
04/12/2025
Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nationally and RegionallyBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1:52 pm
Print This Sto...
04/12/2025
(L-R) Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Mohammadreza Eyni, Sara Khaki, and Judith Helfand att...
04/12/2025
SBS launches Future Frames initiative to support emerging First Nations video ed...
04/12/2025
Coronal mass ejections caused by eruptions on the surface of the sun can have fa...
04/12/2025
Gracenote Content Connect enables media ecosystem to precisely align ad campaigns and programming based on rich content signals
NEW YORK - December 4, 2025 - N...
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.
