ST. CLOUD, Minn. — COVID-19 has added new financial challenges to the tight budgets of colleges and universities.
But St. Cloud State University President Robbyn Wacker is still optimistic.
St. Cloud State is forging ahead with a vision to reform the school to focus that focuses on four academic areas and an individualized approach for students. It’s called “It’s Time” and is meant to distinguish SCSU from other regional comprehensive universities.
“We are committed to being different,” Wacker said on a Zoom meeting with the St. Cloud Times in late July.
“Our goal is to not just balance a budget,” she said. “We have a plan we’re going to implement.”
Fall classes start Aug. 24, and students already have begun the move-in process.
Last year Wacker announced dramatic changes to get the budget in check: layoffs of eight tenured faculty and the end of the football and golf programs. The school faced a budget shortfall with declining enrollments and declining state aid.
Other schools have made cuts, too. The University of Minnesota Duluth announced in December 2019 it would lay off 29 faculty and staff to trim its budget.
There are new issues this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic: more distance learning and an economic recession that could drive down enrollment, lost revenue from cancelled athletics, and new costs to keep campus sanitized and technologically connected.
In late April, Minnesota State and the University of Minnesota administrators told lawmakers they expected tens of millions and hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, respectively, due to the pandemic.
St. Cloud State was still able to balance its budget for its 2021 fiscal year, Wacker said. Next her administration is moving to implement the “It’s Time” plan.
“We’re not coming with ‘What do we need to cut?’ and ‘What’s going to be eliminated?’,” Wacker said. “We’re really coming in with ‘Where are we going?’ and ‘How are we going to get there?'”
Wacker thinks this vision will help the school get through the COVID-19 crisis in a better position than other institutions in the U.S. But she is also thinking about the impact of a recession and about policies that could help students cover the costs of their education.
COVID-19 is costing the school money. Students are no longer sharing rooms, but they’re still paying for the cost of a double, rather than single room.
The men’s hockey season is still up in the air and that could mean lost ticket and broadcasting revenue, Wacker said. Plus, there’s lost revenue from canceled events and camps.
“There are some nibbles around the edges of our revenue,” Wacker said. “And we’re keeping track of all of that in hopes that the state or the federal government can do another round of CARES funding.”
St. Cloud State received $7.9 million already to help mitigate losses due to the pandemic. Students received $3.8 million of that. The school used the rest for remote learning and to refund parking and residence hall payments once campus cleared of students.
Across the U.S., enrollment has gone down at universities and colleges. Of the seven universities in the Minnesota State system, St. Cloud State’s enrollment declined the most in the past decade, according to analysis last year by the St. Cloud Times.
The administration is reaching out to students and families to encourage registration this fall and holding town halls about what it will look like.
Student registrations increased after St. Cloud State announced its plans for fall instruction, Wacker said. There are online and in-person options. And there’s a mid-semester start date for students who aren’t ready to return in September or for international students who might not be able to travel yet.
“We’re still recruiting and reaching out to students so I feel pretty optimistic where we’re headed,” Wacker said.
Wacker became SCSU’s president in the fall of 2018. During her first convocation she kicked off the school’s 150th anniversary celebration and laid out big goals for its future. She told the campus community she wants St. Cloud State to be the “university of choice in Minnesota.”
Two years later that plan is underway, amid a pandemic, a recession and an international reckoning on racism spurred by the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
The “It’s Time” plan calls for a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. It shifts the school from teaching-focused to a “university of teachers and scholars.” It highlights four of the schools programs to make it more distinctive: health, leadership, education, and engineering and applied science.
“It’s pretty exciting,” Wacker said. “It’s pretty bold. It’s pretty cool. And we’re just plugging away at it.”