At West Virginia University, we believe that when fear is the enemy, speed is our friend.
On campuses throughout the nation, including ours, fear has been brewing as a cascade of economic and societal challenges begins to reshape higher education forever.
The Demographic Cliff and Other Challenges
The most dramatic of these challenges is the “demographic cliff,” a sharp decline in the college-aged population. U.S. birthrates dropped sharply beginning with the Great Recession of 2008. For decades, the annual number of births per 1,000 women of child-bearing age ranged from 65 to 70. After the decline that started in 2008, that number plummeted to 56 by 2020, the lowest in our nation’s history.
Certain regions of the country, such as the Northeast and Midwest, will face steeper population drops than others. West Virginia, which has long had a declining and aging population, lost a higher percentage of residents than any other state in the 2020 U.S. Census. West Virginia public schools enrolled just over 250,000 youth in the most recent school year, compared to 282,000 in 2010.
Past declines in the college-aged population were largely offset by the rising percentage of high school graduates who pursued higher education. Little room remains for further growth in college attendance; in fact, recent trends show more students questioning the value of the four-year degree. When the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted college campuses, some students left, and they show no signs of returning. Labor shortages have produced well-paying job opportunities that some high school graduates have seized as an alternative to college.
As education writer and policy analyst Kevin Carey wrote in a Vox article, “Higher ed’s eight-decade run of unbroken good fortune—always more students, more money, more economic demand, and more social prestige—may be about to end.” (“The Incredible Shrinking Future of College,” Vox, November 21, 2022.)
In West Virginia, for example, about 46 percent of 2022 high school graduates entered college. Before the pandemic, the percentage was above 50 percent, ranging as high as nearly 55 percent in 2011.
Those students who have enrolled in college have, since the pandemic, shown greater need for mental health support, as have faculty and staff, requiring institutions to invest more in mental health and wellness resources.
Meanwhile, a long-running trend of cuts in state funding for public universities accelerated since the pandemic. According to the West Virginia Center for Budget and Policy, our state has cut $156 million of higher education funding over the past decade—a nearly 25 percent reduction in overall support.
While state funding shrinks, the inflation permeating our economy has driven up operating costs. And raising tuition significantly is not an option for generating revenue. Approximately 25 percent of our students are eligible for Pell Grants, and the cost of attendance weighs heavy on their minds.
On our campus and others, federal funding during the pandemic temporarily obscured the budgetary hole widening beneath our feet. As the funding evaporated and our vision cleared, we faced an estimated $45-million structural budget deficit for Fiscal Year 2024. Looking further ahead, President Gordon Gee and our board realized we would need to trim $75 million from the budget to prepare for a potential 5,000-student decline over the next decade.
A Plan that Puts Students First To our university’s board of governors and its administration, the need for action became apparent by early 2023. The board charged President Gee to lead a strategic repositioning of the entire university system. And we agreed on the underpinnings that must support our action plan.
We must make data-driven decisions about academic programs to retain and eliminate, based on student interest, delivery costs, and societal need.
We must be transparent, enabling students, parents, faculty, staff, alumni, legislators, donors, and other stakeholders to see and believe in the challenges we are facing.
Above all, we must move quickly. University campuses are historically bound by tradition and resistant to change, but we knew that waiting would only make our situation worse and more painful for those affected by reductions.
As President Gee likes to say, “Imagine a garden that is filled with flowers but is never pruned. It is difficult to see the beauty when it is overgrown.”
Like other institutions, West Virginia University has been overgrown for some time.
Public universities have always lived at the margins, stretching funding to do all the things we would like to do. We can no longer live and work that way. We must address our structural budget deficit and create a solid financial foundation for our future.
Putting students first is our overriding principle. Our leaders began having focus groups with students early this year to hear firsthand about their goals, obstacles, and needs.
As President Gee said in his “State of the University” address: “The journey we may have had as a college student is much different than the journey our students experience today. We must provide the resources and tools they need to thrive in today’s world. Our students must be our number one priority. When they succeed, we all succeed.”
Making It Happen
Efforts began nearly a decade ago to reimagine and streamline various university operations and services, and two years ago, an academic transformation initiative was launched.
Now, it is time to evaluate everything we do, from each academic program to all that we spend on supplies, travel, utilities, printing, and more.
We must save enough so that we can reinvest funds to start and grow new programs that align with student demand and fulfill the university’s land-grant mission. It is imperative that we remain future-focused and continue to invest in initiatives that will differentiate the university nationally, enhance the student experience, and help us to work smarter.
To add credibility to our process, we hired a higher education consultant on budget efficiencies, to help with our analysis and to ensure that we are being thorough and following the best practices.
Vice presidents, deans, and other leaders have specific goals they are charged to meet. Every unit is examining their priorities to ensure we are investing wisely. Armed with that data, we will make the difficult decision to stop investing in those things that no longer meet our expectations.
The university will assess restructuring opportunities, which will likely result in college and department mergers to be announced in the next several months. We will develop “teach out” plans to ensure current students in affected programs can complete their degrees.
We have also invited interested employees to apply for a voluntary work time reduction program.
Unfortunately, some faculty and staff positions will be eliminated as academic programs are identified and ultimately approved for reduction or discontinuation. While we know this will be difficult for those affected, 95 percent or more of our 7,500 employees will continue to work here and letting them know their status as soon as possible will prevent much needless uncertainty.
That is why we have established a public timetable outlining each step of the program review process, which will culminate in mid-September with final decisions about program reduction. Along the way, we will keep the campus informed in many ways, including through virtual gatherings that we call Campus Conversations, a website (transformation.wvu.edu), and opportunities for public comment. We are also taking care to keep government officials, donors, and alumni informed throughout the process.
We are encouraging employees who feel anxious about this process to reach out to our Faculty and Staff Assistance Program, which provides a safe space and offers a compassionate, listening ear to help employees carry the emotional load. Our faculty ombudsperson is also available to provide information about university policies, procedures, and resources; coach faculty through tough conversations and circumstances; facilitate conflict resolution; or just listen and serve as a resource for evaluating options and making decisions.
It is important to move forward with compassion, but it is paramount to move forward quickly. West Virginia University is moving aggressively, but I believe all but perhaps the most elite universities will have to tread this same path.
I recommend to my fellow college and university trustees that you embrace transparency, making your situation clear to stakeholders and getting buy-in from as many as possible.
I urge you to give your president your complete support during what is bound to be a turbulent period on campus. It is unfair and counterproductive to let the president take the heat for difficult decisions.
Above all, I strongly recommend that you act quickly. Our board members originally wanted to act even more quickly than the approximately six-month timetable that proved necessary. The sooner you get past the pain, the sooner healing can begin.
As President Gee has said, “We are repositioning ourselves today so that we can be a responsive, relevant university system of the future.”
Universities that take swift action will emerge from this challenging period more resilient and more valuable to society than ever before.
J. Thomas Jones is the chairman of the West Virginia University Board of Governors.
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