The Ivy League. They're among America's most competitive colleges and some of the wealthiest, too. In good times, that's a huge advantage. But now the drastic reductions in their endowments mean making some unaccustomed cutbacks while in some cases, tuition plus room and board heads north of $48,000 a year.

After Tuesday, hopeful high school seniors will begin logging onto their computers to learn whether they made the cut at an Ivy League school, but what they may not realize is that once they arrive on campus, things won't be exactly the same as when they embarked on their college tours last year.

At Harvard, cleaning services have been cut back. Princeton is reducing the number of visiting professors it hosts and the classes they teach. Cornell and Columbia are admitting more freshmen a move that will increase tuition revenue but aren t adding new classes to accommodate them.

And while most Ivy League schools are increasing the amount of financial aid that's available, students are competing against a bigger pool of aid applicants, most of whose families have been hit by the economic downturn, says Rod Bugarin, a former financial aid officer at Brown and Columbia, and currently a financial aid and admissions counselor at New York-based IvyWise, an independent college-counseling company. For example, some 75% of Princeton s freshmen applicants applied for financial aid, up 5% from the previous year.

Read our school-by-school look at the cuts.

To be sure, many other schools are facing far worse financial problems and would be happy with a multibillion-dollar endowment even if it fell by double-digit percentages like the Ivies' (hit by the stock market, their endowments decreased by as much as 30% between June and December). But the cutbacks at the Ivies suggest how the recession is cutting into what parents and students receive for their tuition dollars at even the wealthiest schools let alone those with weaker finances.

For a look at how all this is playing out, SmartMoney.com took an Ivy-by-Ivy look at where cutbacks are happening. While we focused on university funding and programs, students attending schools in urban settings, such as Yale in New Haven, Columbia in New York and Penn in Philadelphia, are also likely to see effects of cuts in city budgets as well. We also discussed all these cuts with representatives from each university (except Dartmouth, which did not return our calls seeking comment), most of whom said some of the cuts are unavoidable in this environment and they re looking to minimize the impact on students.

Here s a look at how each member of the Ivy League is coping with the economy, with schools listed in order of their endowment size.

(Note: The 2008 Ivy League endowment figures come from the National Association of College and University Business Officers, or NACUBO, which tracks university endowments on an annual basis.)

Harvard University: Cleaning-staff cutbacks, faculty salary freeze

2008 Endowment: $36.5 billion
Change between June 30, 2008, and Oct. 31, 2008 (most recent data available): down 22%

Incoming freshmen may have to clean up after themselves more. After Harvard asked some subcontractors that provide its cleaning services to cut costs by 30% to 40%, the company laid off workers and cut their hours. Earlier in March, news of the potential layoffs prompted protests by 150 staff and students. More services on campus could be impacted by Harvard's early retirement program, which has been extended to 1,600 staff members (not including faculty). Faculty salaries have been frozen. (Nevertheless, searches to fill more than 50 faculty positions, ranging from South Asia studies to public health, will go on.) New students may also have less time with their resident advisor, or proctor. The school is considering cutting some of the meals it subsidizes for proctors.

Tuition and financial aid
Undergraduate tuition plus room and board will be 3.5% higher for 2009-10 at $48,868 a year. Meanwhile, need-based scholarship aid is expected to grow by 18% to $147 million. Families earning less than $60,000 annually won t be required to pay tuition.

Yale University: Halts construction of residential halls, bio building

2008 Endowment: $22.9 billion
Change since June 30: down 25% through mid-December

Any prospective students looking forward to moving into Yale's two new residential colleges when they were slated to open in 2013 will have to rethink their plans. To save $2 billion in capital spending, the university is delaying the project, along with almost all other construction projects, including a biology building and art gallery. While Yale says it won't cut classes and will continue to hire (albeit at a greatly reduced rate), it still expects to lose about 300 to 500 positions through attrition. No layoffs or faculty cuts have been announced. Overall, the school plans to cut about 7.5% of salaries and other operating expenses. Faculty and staff making more than $75,000 a year will have their salaries frozen.

Tuition and financial aid
Tuition, room and board will climb by 3.3% to $47,500 for the 2009-10 school year, but financial aid will remain untouched. Families earning less than $60,000 won t be required to contribute to tuition. Families who make between $61,000 and $200,000 will also receive some tuition breaks.

Princeton: Fewer courses, building and renovations put on hold

2008 Endowment: $16.3 billion
Change since June 30: down 11% through Oct. 31

As part of its plan to cut $82 million from its budget for the upcoming academic year, Princeton is bringing in fewer visiting faculty members -- and offering fewer of the courses they teach. The school is also cutting its budget for its 10-year building plan by $300 million, resulting in delays in the renovation of Green Hall, the humanities and social sciences building, and the groundbreaking on the new neuroscience and psychology buildings.

Students with the late-night munchies will have to forget about Princeton s University Store, which is no longer open 24 hours (it closes between 3 a.m. and 8 a.m. now). But they don't have to worry about getting around: the school's newly-upgraded shuttle bus system is still running as planned.

Tuition and financial aid
In January the university proposed a 2.9% increase in undergraduate tuition and room and board, the lowest since 1966, to $47,020. Princeton s undergraduate scholarship budget will expand by 13% to $104 million to help offset the tuition increase.

Columbia University: Brace for more crowded classrooms

2008 Endowment: $7.1 billion
Change since June 30: 15% drop over six-month period ending Dec. 31

Columbia is looking for safety in numbers. The school is upping enrollment in the freshman class by 50 students. Yet it doesn't plan to add any more core curriculum classes (the school says current classes aren't filled to maximum capacity). University Provost Alan Brinkley said budget cutbacks will mean postponing many programs intended to improve life at Columbia. Those cuts will include delays in projects like the new Sakai CourseWorks system, which allows instructors to post their course materials online, and constructions of a mixed-use academic center in West Harlem that has more than 6.8 million square feet of space for teaching, research and other services. The school also plans to cut PhD enrollment by 10%.

Tuition and financial aid
Tuition for 2009-10 will be announced in midsummer. Tuition for the 2008-09 academic year was $37,470, and room and board ranged from $5,810 to $7,416. Financial aid will not be affected. Students from families making $60,000 or less are eligible for free tuition, room and board.

University of Pennsylvania: School of Arts & Sciences to take a 10% hit

2008 Endowment: $6.2 billion
Change since June 30: down 19% through December

Liberal arts students may think Penn has gotten a little too liberal with its cuts at the School of Arts & Sciences where it plans to reduce the budget by 10%. As part of the cuts, 5% to 8% of the faculty in the department will be let go over the next few years and programs like its Fox Leadership summer internship program in New Orleans will be suspended. With salaries and benefits representing 52% of the university's overall budget, the school is limiting salary increases and only filling essential positions. It's also reducing travel and professional conference participation.

Tuition and financial aid
Undergraduate tuition, room and board and fees will increase by 3.8% for 2009-10, the smallest tuition increase in 41 years, to $49,986. The university is raising its financial aid budget by nearly $18 million to $137 million for the next academic year, and introduced a financial aid plan that will substitute loans with grants for aid-eligible undergraduates beginning this fall.

Cornell University: More students, smaller staff

2008 Endowment: $5.4 billion
Change since June 30: 27% down during the second half of 2008

To boost revenue, Cornell is admitting 100 more freshmen to its ranks this upcoming academic year (the target class size for 2008-09 was 3,050 students). The move, says a university spokesperson, could result in slightly larger class sizes. However, the school also plans to shrink its faculty and staff over the next three years either through attrition or early retirement programs.

Even if classes aren't more crowded, freshmen will probably encounter longer lines at the cafeterias on campus. The North Star dining hall, a popular eating spot among first years, will no longer be open for Friday and Saturday night dinners. The school is also closing its physical sciences library and its College of Architecture's visual resources facility. It has also put all local transportation, infrastructure and housing projects that have not been started yet on hold.

Tuition and financial aid
Cornell will increase tuition and room and board for undergraduates by at least 4% to $50,064. Undergraduate students who are New York residents and attend one of Cornell s state-supported schools will see a 7.2% increase to $33,924. It will increase its undergraduate financial aid by $35 million for 2009-10.

Dartmouth College: Dining services, course offerings get sliced

2008 Endowment: $3.7 billion
Change since June 30: dropped 18% as of Dec. 31

From cuts in dining services to fewer classes, Dartmouth's first years could be in for a shock when they arrive on campus as the school struggles to wipe $47 million from its budget. Not only is Dartmouth laying off a chunk of its dining services staff, but it's also closing its Caf North cafeteria. The catalog of courses is also going to be shy a few dozen (about 30 to 35) courses come next year and athletics programs will also take a hit.

So far, more than 70 staff members (not including faculty) accepted Dartmouth s retirement incentive plan. Others weren't as lucky. In February, the dean of first-year students was laid off.

Financial aid
Tuition will increase by 4.8% to $36,915 and financial aid will increase by 13% for the 2009-10 year to $72 million. In January 2008, the college expanded its financial aid package by replacing student loans with scholarships and offering free tuition for students whose families earn less than $75,000 a year.

Brown University: Campus services, maintenance expected to get cut

2008 Endowment: $2.7 billion
Change since July 1: nearly 30% down

Brown's president, Ruth Simmons, may have taken a 20% pay cut, but other staff members are going to take a much bigger hit. In an effort to cut $90 million from the school's budget over the next five years, 60 positions will be eliminated. Cuts in campus services are also on tap. One possible victim: the department that s in charge of construction and maintenance, which tends to the disposal of campus trash and snow removal, among other things, according to Brown s Daily Herald (a Brown spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on this matter). Upgrades to the school's data center, which stores everything from course syllabi to payroll information, may also be stalled. To lower expenses, a former life sciences laboratory is now occupied by student services and a former gymnasium is being renovated into classroom space.

Tuition and financial aid
The total charge for undergraduate tuition, room and board and fees will rise 2.9% to $49,128, the lowest annual increase since the early 1960s. Undergraduate financial aid will increase 10.9% to $76.5 million for 2009-10.