US Colleges Cut Programs Because of Budget Deficits, Fewer Students

01Christina Westman hoped to become a music therapist when she came to St.

02Cloud State University in Minnesota.

03But that became impossible when the college announced a plan to cut its music department, along with 42 other study programs.

04The move is part of a wave of program cuts among small and large colleges in the United States.

05The aim of the cuts is to deal with budget deficits.

06Causes for the deficits include less government money, rising operational costs, and fewer students.

07The cuts mean more than reduced budget deficits or job losses.

08For me, it's really been anxiety-ridden, said Westman.

09It's just the fear of the unknown.

10At St.

11Cloud State, most students will be able to finish their degrees before the cuts.

12But Westman is transferring to Augsburg University in Minneapolis.

13For years, many colleges avoided making cuts, said Larry Lee.

14He was acting president of St.

15Cloud State, but left last month to lead Blackburn College in Illinois.

16The number of students enrolling in college dropped during the pandemic.

17But officials hoped the number would return to levels that existed before the COVID pandemic.

18They had used federal aid money to ease budget deficits.

19They were holding on.

20They were holding on.

21Holding on, Lee said.

22The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center said, Students have begun to return to two-year community colleges.

23But the numbers for four-year colleges remain lower than expected.

24Even without growing concerns about the high cost of college and student debt, the population of young adults in the U.S.

25is shrinking.

26Birth rates fell during the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009 and never recovered.

27Now, smaller classes of high school students are preparing to finish and head off to college.

28It's very difficult math to overcome, said Patrick Lane, a vice president at the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education.

29In addition, the new federal government's financial aid application has created more confusion.

30Millions of students are wondering where to go to college and how to pay for it.

31Catherine Meyer is an expert with the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution.

32She said, I think a lot of colleges are really concerned they're not going to make their enrollment targets.

33Many colleges, like St.

34Cloud State, had already faced budget problems.

35The university's enrollment rose to around 18,300 students in the autumn of 2020, before steadily falling to about 10,000 students in 2023.

36Its student population has stopped shrinking, but the budget deficit totaled $32 million over the past two years, forcing the sweeping cuts, Lee said.

37Some colleges have taken the more extreme step of closing.

38That happened at the 1,000-student Birmingham Southern College in Alabama, the 900-student Fontbonne University in Missouri, the 350-student Wells College in New York, and the 220-student Goddard College in Vermont.

39Cuts, however, are more common.

40Two of North Carolina's public universities in Asheville and Greensboro plan to cut 14 programs, including Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Physics.

41Arkansas State University announced it was ending nine programs.

42Three of the 64 colleges in the State University of New York system have also cut programs because of low enrollment and budget problems.

43Other schools' cutting study programs include West Virginia University, Drake University in Iowa, the University of Nebraska campus in Kearney, North Dakota State University, and nearby Dickinson State University.

44Experts say it is just the beginning.

45Schools that are not making cuts now are examining their class offerings.

46At Pennsylvania State University, officials are looking for similar or under-enrolled programs to cut.

47The most affected programs are usually smaller ones and those in the humanities, which now have fewer students than 15 years ago.

48It's a humanitarian disaster for all of the faculty and staff involved, not to mention the students who want to pursue this stuff, said Brian Alexander, a Georgetown University senior scholar who has written on higher education.

49It's an open question to what extent colleges and universities can cut their way to sustainability.

50Terry Vermillion recently retired after 34 years as a music professor at St.

51Cloud State.

52He said, the cuts are hard to watch after the pandemic.

53We were just unable to really effectively teach music online.

54So, there's a gap, he said.

55And you know we're just starting to come out of that gap and we're just starting to rebound a little bit.

56And then, the cuts are coming.

57Lily Rhodes is a music major at St.

58Cloud State.

59Rhodes said, there's no musicians coming in.

60So, when our seniors graduate, they go on and our ensembles just keep getting smaller and smaller.

61It's a little difficult to keep going if it's like this, she added.

62I'm Mario Ritter, Jr.

63And I'm Jill Robbins.