CLEMSON UNIVERSITY — Clemson University President James Barker said the economic downturn and subsequent market collapse will impact the university.

Barker and other area college officials face hard decisions as the country deals with its current economic crisis.

Barker is asking Clemson faculty, staff and students to suggest ideas to save money, and already has suggested a four-day work week and hiring freezes.

And Anderson University may see a decline in enrollment because of the economy, said Vice President for Finance and Administration John Kunst.

“It may be a little slower enrollment for us,” Kunst said.

University of South Carolina finance expert Ernie Csiszar said colleges and universities will see direct and indirect results of the economic crisis.

In endowments, it will have “a very significant impact on the kind of money that reaches universities,” said Csiszar, a clinical professor of finance and director of the Moore School’s Risk and Uncertainty Management Initiative. Indirectly, it will affect schools that receive state appropriations because tax revenues will fall off, meaning less money for state-supported schools.

Colleges are in the early stages of dealing with the downturn and trying to decide what to cut, Csiszar said.

Barker said Thursday by e-mail that state officials have revised state revenue estimates downward by 6 percent, which follows a 2 percent cut in July, bringing the total state revenue reductions to $554 million. Clemson receives a large share of funding from the state, and will face reductions because of the declining revenues. But Clemson receives money from many other sources, he said.

“These cuts will be felt,” Barker said in the e-mail. “In higher education we may feel the gravity of the situation more deeply than any other state agency, because the national financial crisis could impact every source of revenue we have, not just state appropriations.”

Clemson Chief Financial Officer Brett Dalton said the university already had dealt with state budget cuts of more than $9 million this year.

“Adjusting for inflation, our current level of state support per student is less than it was in 1991,” he said in a statement. “It is our hope that the legislature will be able to make some strategic decisions to minimize the impact to higher education….”

Dalton said the school now faces declines in its endowment, tighter credit markets for students and parents who use loans to finance education costs, and other financial variables.

At Anderson University, enrollment hit a total of 2,000 this year, when counting all students, Kunst said. Unlike Clemson, which receives a portion of its funding from the state, Anderson University is a private school and relies on student enrollment for a large part of its funding, he said.

While student loan availability “has not particularly been a problem right now, who knows what it will be in the future,” Kunst said.

Anderson’s endowment will probably take a hit this year, but then it is coming off a good year two years ago, he said. “You’ve got to take the long-term view” on endowment returns, he said.

“Our goal is to lose as little as we can,” he said. “But we don’t rely highly on the endowment to pay for operations.”

Barker said the school is committed to keeping “the value of a Clemson degree” and not making across-the-board cuts.

“Budget centers have been given targets to meet through a combination of reduced costs and enhanced revenues,” he wrote. “Some faculty and staff searches have been canceled.

“Other tools being explored are a shorter work week, strategic hiring and selected elimination of vacant positions,” Barker wrote.

Barker cited the success of Maymester, which was created in a previous economic downturn, and resulted in increased revenues in the summer.

Dalton said that “should additional cuts materialize” from losses in revenues, “additional and probably more severe cuts will be required.”

Csiszar said there is a silver lining of sorts. While enrollment in some programs will suffer, others like health care or biological sciences generally pick up in economic downturns.

As for the economic crisis, he said it would probably last 12 to 18 more months.

“I think we’re in for much more turmoil,” he said.