SUNY Potsdam plans to section out 4 tutorial applications amid $9M deficit
The State College of New York at Potsdam plans to section out 4 tutorial applications because it stares down a $9 million finances gap.
The general public establishment intends to discontinue bachelor’s applications in pc science training, geographic info science, and speech communications, in addition to a graduate-level certificates in faculty educating.
The college, a part of the 363,000-student SUNY system, has not shared this plan publicly. Nevertheless, native information stories, and a leaked communication from the establishment’s school senate chair, verify the cuts.
Suzanne Smith, the college’s president, is engaged on an effort to place the college on the trail to monetary stability whereas implementing “forward-thinking and proactive applications,” a college spokesperson stated by way of e mail.
“The President will likely be formally saying that plan to the whole campus neighborhood within the coming weeks, and is assured that it’s going to safe SUNY Potsdam’s future for years to return,” the spokesperson stated.
Whereas the system’s two flagships, Stony Brook College and the College of Buffalo, have seen regular enrollment, much less outstanding establishments like SUNY Potsdam have taken a success.
SUNY Potsdam might function a bellwether for issues at these much less seen establishments. It has battled decade-long headcount declines, having greater than 4,000 college students in fall 2013, which plummeted to about 2,400 in fall 2022, in accordance with federal knowledge.
Different public schools are additionally trimming diploma choices in a harsh and aggressive increased ed panorama nonetheless marred by the pandemic’s financial results. West Virginia College this month stated it’s contemplating eliminating nearly three dozen applications, whereas Dickinson State College in North Dakota lately introduced it might drop a to-be-determined variety of tenured school.
Each establishments attributed the cuts to finances shortfalls.
What’s occurring at SUNY Potsdam?
SUNY Potsdam’s cuts got here to mild this month when a letter from the school senate chair, Greg Gardner, leaked to native press.
Gardner stated in an e mail Wednesday that he didn’t present the letter to information media and declined additional remark.
His undated missive states that the college “is in deep monetary problem” that the establishment beforehand tried to repair by scaling again nonpersonnel bills and leaving open school positions unfilled.
The system had traditionally lined the college’s finances deficit by way of loans, grants and, most ceaselessly, monetary reserves from different campuses, Gardner wrote. However with different SUNY establishments’ enrollment in free fall, the system ordered the college to cut back spending and get rid of the deficit as quickly as doable.
That meant school wanted to “brace for influence,” Gardner wrote.
“We should put together ourselves for program and headcount cuts of an order past something we have now seen on the campus in residing reminiscence,” he wrote.
Gardner urged “extra painful” campuswide cuts — past the 4 applications — are coming. And the SUNY Potsdam administration is in talks with a minimum of two tutorial departments about “doable programmatic cuts and reorganizations,” he wrote.
A SUNY system spokesperson didn’t present remark by publication time Friday.
Extra monetary troubles?
SUNY Potsdam has already thought of different austerity strikes this yr.
It mulled not renewing 5 school members’ contracts in its theater and dance departments for fall 2024, resulting in a petition to protect these jobs.
And in 2022, members of SUNY Potsdam’s philosophy division went public that the foremost can be terminated until school might exhibit they may “persistently” preserve a minimum of 10 college students in this system. They’d additionally want to revamp the curriculum in time for fall 2023, the philosophy school stated.
The college’s accreditor, the Center States Fee on Larger Training, had issues in regards to the college’s funds final yr, too.
In June 2022, Center States knowledgeable the college’s management its accreditation might be in jeopardy as a result of SUNY Potsdam couldn’t present it was complying with two of the accreditor’s requirements, associated to institutional planning and funds and assessing scholar achievement.
In June, Center States affirmed the college was as soon as once more following the 2 requirements after the college outlined in a report how it might meet the accreditor’s benchmarks. Nevertheless, the accreditor requested for SUNY Potsdam to produce one other report updating it on the college’s operations, due January 2024.
A Center States spokesperson declined to supply the report it reviewed in June. A SUNY Potsdam spokesperson didn’t present a replica of that report, as an alternative directing Larger Ed Dive to public webpages detailing the college’s accreditation standing.
SUNY system’s broader issues
SUNY Potsdam’s troubles mirror widespread woes for the SUNY system, one in every of the biggest public increased training methods within the U.S. The system bled enrollment over the previous decade, a development the pandemic exacerbated.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, has tried to raise SUNY’s profile. In 2022, she set extremely formidable enrollment targets of 500,000 college students — which it has not but met.
Many schools throughout the system have seen their enrollments spiral. The president of the union representing broad numbers of SUNY school informed Larger Ed Dive earlier this yr that a minimum of 19 of the system’s 64 campuses had extreme monetary issues.
Hochul’s fiscal 2024 finances didn’t earmark cash for a distressed campus fund, for which the union had lobbied. However the state did infuse the system with extra public funding, giving it $163 million greater than the earlier finances cycle. It additionally supplied about $1.6 billion in capital cash.
“This yr’s finances is a vote of confidence within the energy and potential of public increased training, and SUNY is dedicated to making sure that these historic investments translate into larger alternative and success throughout our 64 campuses,” SUNY leaders stated in a press release in Could.
