At the June 1 Board of Trustees meeting at UO, the big talking point was the $65 million budget shortfall, reports The College Fix. This was blamed on declining enrollment, increased costs and a loss in grant funding.
The board says that it will be taking necessary steps to ensure that this budget cut doesn't affect students.
Steve Holwerda, chair of the Board of Trustees, spoke on this at the meeting, reports a local affiliate station of CBS News.
“We know we're going to end up having to make some changes, and to the extent that we don't, we're going to take it out of savings. That's basically what happens, and that only lasts so long,” says Holwerda.
The university announced on June 2 that it will shut down two off-campus dorms as it handles budget cuts. They also announced that they will move Riley Hall to an overflow dorm, only using it if some students need to be housed.
UO President Karl Scholz blamed low out-of-state first year enrollment, which means lower tuition revenue.
Oregon is not the only college to be affected by enrollment problems leading to budget cuts. The University of Arizona had to close one of its residence halls for the last school year due to lower occupancy. Portland State University has considered reducing or eliminating 19 academic programs while addressing a budget deficit, and Penn State has closed several of its smaller satellite campuses after years of enrollment declines.
Roland Fryer, professor of economics at Harvard, told CBS Mornings that the decline in college enrollment is just market correction.
“These are a lot of colleges that statistically produce zero value. If you're paying $40,000-$50,000 a year into something you come out of college with $200,000 of debt and your income doesn't go up any more than if you had not gone to those schools, that's not a good investment,” says Fryer.
