This new school year brought with it a $2.3 million revenue shortfall.
Every year DePauw University uses econometricians to project how enrollment will turn out for the year, and the staff builds the yearly budget around these projections.
This year there are fewer first-year students attending DePauw than previously projected, and the University will face the challenge of a $2.3 million revenue shortfall.
“The best that we can tell is that it really came down to financial packaging,” said Vice President of Admissions, Anthony Jones, “That more students were convinced that the gap they were going to have at another institution was going to be smaller than the gap they were going to have at DePauw, and unfortunately didn’t see the value enough to want to pay that gap.” In addition, a higher percentage of students who chose to attend DePauw are receiving financial aid.
“As we, as a cabinet, became aware of this shortfall, we immediately began the big dive into how to address this without harming the student experience, and we think that we have done that,” said President Mark McCoy.
Some administration positions will be changed to adjust for the revenue shortfall. Such as possible replacements of certain administrative roles. “Our goal will be to cover by sharing responsibilities, maybe some different roles for people, so that we impact the student experience as little as possible,” said Vice President for Finance and Administration, Brad Kelsheimer.
The administration has tried to spread the shortfall out, instead of placing the burden on one department of the University. Instead of removing raises in general, the administration began to evaluate raises based on a grading system they created, where cabinet members and higher leadership were excluded from receiving raises.
The administration has also decided to push maintenance of some buildings to a later date. “The specific projects we are deferring, we think will have no impact on student experience,” said Kelsheimer.
There will be a cut in travel and professional development for staff and administration. There will be less staff members going to conferences they would normally go to. “That will have an impact on staff employees, but that should not have an impact on students,” said Kelsheimer.
Additionally, the administration asked all departments to scale back on the resources they are using.
The administration is working on different solutions for each of the departments, with final decisions being made during the year depending on how the budget plays out.
Administration is already starting to focus on plans for upcoming years to curb the University’s spending and make sure they are closer to the budget they plan for each year. “We have something very significant here for us to address,” said Kelsheimer.
“This is something that I think DePauw can address in the years to come and we have some pretty strong plans moving forward to do that,” said McCoy, “but we have to be cognizant of the fact that this is the new normal of the education in America.”