Tag: low enrollment

Activity fee increase would prove student investment

It’s in our blood at Ohio Wesleyan to complain.

That’s not a criticism. Our complaints aren’t petty or vapid but substantive. They’re real responses to real problems. We don’t resent tuition increases because we’re penny-pinchers. Rather, we hate to see our friends leave because they cannot afford OWU anymore.

Sometimes our complaints lead to solutions. But other times we fall short and solutions fail to materialize.

This week, though, the Wesleyan Council on Student Affairs posed a strong solution to part of a big problem facing the university – raising the student activity fee to offset the budget shortfall low enrollment has caused.

OWU had about 100 fewer students this year. Fewer students entering the university and paying tuition means the university has less money to spend.

Some calculations tell us just how much less. Last academic year it cost $51,180 to attend OWU (tuition, average room and board and the student activity fee). Taking into account the average tuition discount of 60.9 percent, or $31,169, the average student paid $20,011.

Multiply that by 100 and you get about $2,000,000. That’s a big drop.

Administrators have to make up for it somewhere, WCSA is rightly concerned it will have detrimental effects on some of the most important services students use every day.

The student activity fee hasn’t increased since 2011, and a modest hike to help preserve such crucial services just makes sense.

WCSA would use part of the higher fee to help fund different student affairs departments. Some are vital to student health and safety, such as Counseling Services, Health Services and Public Safety. Others, such as the Community Service Learning Office and Career Services, enrich our lives as students and future citizens.

Beyond serving our own interests as students, increasing the fee shows we care about the university and the people who do important work for us. It shows we’re financially and emotionally invested in this place and want to make it the best it can be.

It’s complicated, though. Not every student can afford any more costs, and we can’t afford to lose any more of our talented peers to money.

So I think WCSA ought to make its proposal more progressive. Instead of an across-the-board increase, each student’s fee should be adjusted based on how much they and their family are expected to pay for their education, according to the Federal Application for Student Financial Aid (FAFSA).

Students who have lower expected contributions and can afford to pay more get a bigger hike, and vice versa. This would ensure students who cannot take on any more financial burdens would not have to.

Students complain because we care. We must channel that passion into solutions. WCSA has made us proud by putting forward a good solution, and we ought to help the council make that solution work.

Low enrollment numbers forcing budget cuts

Ohio Wesleyan’s budget is suffering cutbacks because enrollment is not as high as school officials want.

According to an email sent to school faculty by OWU President Rock Jones, the projected budget deficit is going to be $4.5 million for the 2015-2016 fiscal year. As a result, the university is looking for ways to save money.

Chris Wolverton, a professor in the botany department and head of the university governance council, said the council was tasked by the president to come up with ideas to save money.

“Bottom line, we’re down a lot of students, not just this year, and not just last year, but in general, the school’s enrollment is really low, and as a result, the school just isn’t making as much money,” Wolverton said.

Susan Dileno, vice president of enrollment at OWU, said the 2013 freshman class had 572 students, while the 2014 freshman class had only 484 students.

According to the email, the school administration is considering several options to save money. These ideas include “operations reductions, compensation adjustments, staff reductions and frozen vacant faculty lines.”

Wolverton explained that frozen vacant faculty lines are when a professor retires or is fired by the university; that position is called a faculty line. So keeping those lines frozen means not hiring new professors to a certain position to save money that would otherwise be spent on their salary.

“The size of the faculty is actually very difficult to change,” said Wolverton. “Right now, we have around 145 full-time faculty members.”

There are also the discretionary expenses that Wolverton said the council has considered cutting. These are the amount of basic office supplies like printer ink, staples, pens, and pencils and other similar items.

Wolverton also explained one of the main options the council is considering to save money – which he says many faculty members have been in support of – is to forego the salary raises which were planned and budgeted for the next fiscal year.

Another option being considered is increasing health care premiums.

“There are lots of different salary tiers at OWU, some people are paid on hourly wages, and some people – the administration members – make six figures,” Wolverton said. “So not everyone pays the same premiums for health care. We are considering increasing how much the higher tiers have to pay for health care.”

The council on university governance – which is made up of six faculty members – will present the administration with money-saving ideas by the end of March, and the administrators will then make a decision by May 15.