In late October, members of the Board of Trustees began to review the budget -- as it was announced there would be another cut before the end of this year.
This additional $10 million cut was not part of the original 2018 fiscal year budget created in June. The new cut is due to many setbacks, including enrollment.
According to a report by The Dayton Daily News, the numbers of in-state versus out of state enrollment was not as high as it was expected to be. The school had more in-state students and fewer students enroll from out of the state.
In-state tuition costs $10,130 for a full two semesters as a commuter. The cost of tuition for those living on campus is nearly double, at $19,780. For out of state students, the total cost of tuition and living on campus is $28,658.
Student enrollment is a large source of revenue for the majority of universities. Wright State’s tuition revenue was a projected $4 million; in-state enrollment dropped by nearly 600 students from 2016
These cuts come less than six months after the Board of Trustee’s massive $30.8 million budget cut, which resulted in the laying off of 57 employees, 189 positions eliminations, cutting in operational charges and additional attrition.
Interim president Curtis McCray said the university should have cut around $10 million more at the time of the largest budget cut, according to a Dayton Daily article released in June.
“I think our problems are a little deeper…I would have preferred that perhaps our cuts had been around $40 million,” McCray told the DDN. “It’s going to be a tough year. It seems to me that probably we have yet cutting to do.”
Following the announcement of the new reduction, a member of administration reached out to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) to rewrite their contract to offset the $10.5 million setback.
According to the AAUP-WSU, the school has intentions to look at reducing faculty pay/benefits, create provisions to make eliminating tenure employees and other areas of the contract that could add to their budget.
These cuts will be done before Jan. 1 of 2018, but the university has not identified the areas that will be impacted.
