Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
Another area college is showing signs of financial strain as the entire higher education industry faces looming issues of long-term fiscal sustainability.
Miami University is going through a budget realignment in which the school plans to reallocate around $17.3 million over the next five years, said David Creamer, Miami vice president of finance and business services.
The majority — around $15.7 million — will be re-appropriated from Miami’s main campus in Oxford while $1.6 million from the university’s branch campuses will be reworked in the budget.
Creamer does not anticipate the school will have to lay off any faculty or staff as part of the budget realignment.
Altogether, Miami will reduce spending on the administration by 7.5 percent and by 10 percent in funding for athletics. The school will also reallocate 5 percent of academic funds to “high-impact programs.”
With the $17.3 million, Miami plans to spend more on faculty and staff while increasing need- and merit-based student financial aid, and will invest in academic initiatives to be described in a 2020 strategic plan, according to a letter to students from president Gregory Crawford.
Miami’s moves come as colleges see financial issues on the horizon, largely stemming from expected declines in enrollment. Those drops will be fueled by an anticipated decrease of more than 13,000 Ohio high school grads by 2031, according to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education.
“It’s just the environment we operate in today,” Creamer said. “I think institutions that plan and prepare for these issues manage them better.”
From fiscal year 2012 to fiscal year 2017, the University of Toledo saw a 10 percent enrollment decline, Youngstown State University had a 12 percent decline and the University of Akron had a 22 percent decrease, according to the Ohio Department of Higher Education.
While Miami’s enrollment hasn’t seen a dramatic decline yet, Wright State University just 52 miles northeast in Fairborn has already experienced decreases. Wright State swallowed a 13 percent decrease in full-time enrollment from FY 2012 to FY 2017.
