And the recession news keeps rolling in…Harvard announced yesterday that it will slow down, and even stop, construction of the $1 billion science complex on its Allston campus, because it can’t afford to spend money on expansion, according to the Boston Globe. The university is bracing for a 30 percent decrease in its endowment this year and has instituted wage freezes and is offering early retirement buyouts.

This doesn’t really come as a surprise, given the news from a couple of weeks ago that Harvard was making space in existing buildings for the researchers who were supposed to be moving into the new facility in 2011.

For now, the building’s foundation will be completed.

Down the road at MIT, it announced today salary freezes for faculty and senior administrators at the higher end of the pay scale. But construction on the new cancer research building, the Media Lab extension and a new business school building will continue. MIT, according to the Globe, also expects its endowment to drop by 30 percent.