SGA President responds to cost increase
Bryan Dietz
Issue date: 6/15/09 Section: Campus News
I wanted to make sure you all had an up to date idea on what is going on with campus. This past week Dr. Johnson and the Board of Trustees approved an additional 2% tuition increase (4% total) for the Daytona Beach, Prescott and World Wide campuses. This increase comes out to be about $1,056 dollars per student this year and places ERAU with other private institutions of increasing tuition by 4%. I agree with many students' feelings of tuition having to go up an additional 2% this coming year but also I want to share some background that I just found out today that I feel needs to be emphasized to the student body.
This coming budget year, the University was facing a large deficit that needed direct action. Action was initiated through reducing 33 positions at the Prescott campus, others were enacted to reduce faculty travel privileges; all to reduce the growing burdens of the University. These burdens have come through graduates defaulting on Perkins loans (which the University is the backup for covering the costs), increased utilities and healthcare costs, increasing the institutionally funded scholarships to $40 million to help students who struggle to afford Embry-Riddle attend the school, and most significantly the 2.5% decline in projected enrollment.
To cover these costs the University did two things. First, they literally looked in every possible department to find efficiencies. Positions on all three campuses (Daytona Beach, Prescott and World Wide) were cut and administration was cut as well. All in all, 73 positions were eliminated (7 Daytona Beach faculty and 11 administration at a University level) and no new positions will be filled until further notice. On top of that, discretionary budgets we cut 20% to save further revenue for the school. These actions cover just about 75% of the deficit.
The remaining 25% was still to be filled. I do recall the Board of Trustees looking into Stimulus Funding, the new GI Bill and other non-tuition forms of money at the Spring meetings. The University keeps looking into this as many Board members and University leaders try to find ways to move away from a tuition driven budget. That is why ROTC is so important - it is revenue for the school that is not based on tuition dollars.
This coming budget year, the University was facing a large deficit that needed direct action. Action was initiated through reducing 33 positions at the Prescott campus, others were enacted to reduce faculty travel privileges; all to reduce the growing burdens of the University. These burdens have come through graduates defaulting on Perkins loans (which the University is the backup for covering the costs), increased utilities and healthcare costs, increasing the institutionally funded scholarships to $40 million to help students who struggle to afford Embry-Riddle attend the school, and most significantly the 2.5% decline in projected enrollment.
To cover these costs the University did two things. First, they literally looked in every possible department to find efficiencies. Positions on all three campuses (Daytona Beach, Prescott and World Wide) were cut and administration was cut as well. All in all, 73 positions were eliminated (7 Daytona Beach faculty and 11 administration at a University level) and no new positions will be filled until further notice. On top of that, discretionary budgets we cut 20% to save further revenue for the school. These actions cover just about 75% of the deficit.
The remaining 25% was still to be filled. I do recall the Board of Trustees looking into Stimulus Funding, the new GI Bill and other non-tuition forms of money at the Spring meetings. The University keeps looking into this as many Board members and University leaders try to find ways to move away from a tuition driven budget. That is why ROTC is so important - it is revenue for the school that is not based on tuition dollars.
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