“A lot of rebuilding has happened at this university over the last few years,” Kawosa said.
The Board of Trustees unanimously voted to pass the next school year’s budget. Wright State expects to spend more than $311 million in fiscal year 2023, which is approximately the same amount of money the university spent last year.
The two largest sources of revenue for WSU are tuition dollars and state funding, according to Thursday’s budget presentation, so falling student enrollment in recent years hurt revenue.
For budgeting purposes, the university is predicting a total of about 10,600 students enrolled at WSU in the fall, counting all categories — undergraduate, College Credit Plus, medical students and other graduate students.
But Wright State is “cautiously optimistic” about the fall semester’s enrollment. Greg Sample, the university’s chief operating officer, said the enrollment number used for the budget is meant to be conservative.
“As of today, the indicators that we are monitoring show signs that Wright State is successfully regaining confidence in market share in the region,” Susan Schaurer, the university’s vice president for enrollment management, said.
The university is planning additional marketing efforts next year, with the board approving a $307,896 contract to expand recruitment in South Asia, including Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
The university also expects to spend more than $5 million on various advertising services over two years, according to the budget. WSU also plans to update the software powering the applicant portal and supporting enrollment management.
Wright State is trying to rebound from years of financial trouble when spending outpaced revenue. The school announced budget cuts and layoffs in 2017 in response to that.
The university also faced falling student enrollment, causing the university to cut 113 faculty positions. Most of those positions were made up by retirements or people leaving. A total of 16 faculty members were notified last July they were part of the “retrenchment” process. Only one was laid off, as 15 elected to take a voluntary retirement package, according to WSU Director of Communications Seth Bauguess.
Enrollment at Wright State has dropped significantly in the last 10 years. Between fall 2011 semester and fall 2021 semester, overall enrollment fell by about 41%, from 19,511 total students in 2011 to 11,469 in fall 2021, according to numbers that Wright State provided to the Ohio Department of Higher Education. Between fall 2016 and fall 2021, enrollment fell around 35%, according to the same numbers.
Wright State administrators cite a declining number of high school graduates in Ohio, plus the COVID-19 pandemic, as contributors to the problem.
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