In this article, the author examines the financial crisis on Wall Street which resonates through higher education across the state, and beyond. The economic malaise is taking its toll in places like Rhode Island, where state budget cuts of 17 percent forced colleges to cut class offerings and leave more than 150 positions unfilled. Florida's colleges eliminated hundreds of staff and faculty positions and froze enrollments after a 6-percent cut in their state finances. Arizona's three public universities eliminated mostly administrative positions to respond to a nearly 5 percent cut in state funds. Wall Street's woes also threaten the efforts to diversify economies that universities seek to foster. Just this year a panel appointed by Eliot Spitzer, the former governor, recommended a $3-billion fund to attract cutting-edge research to the state. That measure will now face long odds in the Statehouse.