The current economic crisis is forcing colleges to delay construction projects and fund-raising campaigns, thereby scaling down their short-term goals, reports the Associated Press.

Because credit markets remain frozen, colleges cannot borrow as cheaply as before, and due to falling home prices, parents cannot use home equity as a resource to pay tuition bills.

“We don’t want to forget our aspirations,” said Thomas Ross, president of Davidson College, in North Carolina. “The minute you stop planning for the future and thinking big and having aspirations, that’s the time when you suffer the most.”