Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
Wright State University trustees considered a new university budget Friday, preparing for what administrators believe will be lower enrollment and state funding.
Though Wright State leaders now expect a budgetary surplus of about $1 million by the end of this fiscal year, long-term demographic, educational and enrollment trends are not on the institution’s side, said Greg Sample, the university’s chief operating officer.
Administrators are budgeting for $210.2 million in total revenue and operating expenses in fiscal 2021, down from revenue of about $257 million this fiscal year.
The university’s enrollment has declined steadily since 2016, long before the COVID-19 pandemic, Sample told trustees in a live-streamed virtual trustees meeting.
There has been a 12 percent fall in enrollment from 2017 to 2019, trustees were also told Friday. About 10,700 students are expected in the fall semester of 2020, on a main Fairborn campus built for about 20,000 students.
“Our traditional students, the student who would normally come here, that population is declining,” Sample told trustees, adding a few moments later: “We’ve built infrastructure for a far greater number of students than we’ll have moving forward.”
