On Nov 3. Sonoma State University Interim President Lee hosted his first budget meeting after last semester’s scandal where a leaked budget document outlined dramatic cuts to SSU’s programs and schools. On Lee’s team were Associate Vice President for University Budget Lauren Lupei, Provost Karen Moranski and Vice President for Administration and Finance/CFO M.Monir Ahmed. 

President Lee felt it was important to share his thoughts about the university’s upcoming plans to SSU students. Lee opened up the discussion with a powerful statement of, “We are making a new, stronger, better Sonoma State.”

As mentioned in previous STAR articles, the leaked budget proposal from last semester, titled “CONFIDENTIAL DRAFT Academic Affairs Budget Advisory Working Group Final Report,” outlined changes such as the merging of the School of Arts and Humanities with the School of Social Sciences as well as the discontinuance of many programs including German cultural studies, History MA, Nursing BS, Nursing FNP and the Hutchins program. 

It is unclear from this most recent budget meeting whether SSU plans on cutting programs or merging schools as mentioned in the leaked document. Their current plans rely solely on increasing enrollment and subsequently increasing revenue to the university. 

Lee explained how a big part of SSU revenue is connected to our enrollment. Even though Lee doesn’t like to equate students with a number, the system sets a target for how many students we need to reach and in the last 3 to 4 years that target has not been reached. 

SSU started to see a decline in enrollment in 2017-2018, though the first real large decline happened in 2019-2020. SSU has lost about 2,700 students and that results in the lost tuition revenue of about $15 million.

As the new year approaches, SSU will see another decline in enrollment because the graduation rate is bigger than our student enrollment.

During the meeting, Lupei explained that SSU has higher expenses than previous years, with price increases in insurance, rent, and energy costs, resulting in a $13.9 million deficit for this year. For this year’s deficit plan, SSU will be using the remainder of the higher education emergency relief or pandemic stimulus fund. 

Provost Karan Moranski spoke at the meeting about recruitment, and how SSU plans to increase enrollment. This includes deploying recruitment scholarships, which have had a big impact on the school. Moranski explained that without these scholarships for incoming students, especially transfer students, the university would be in much worse shape. 

University Registrar Sean Johnson is in the process of contacting over 1600 students that have dropped out over the last several years, and offering a smooth pathway to come back to SSU, hoping to increase enrollment. 

A student attending the meeting shared that they were from the central valley, and that there was no outreach by SSU. The student then asked what the university’s outreach program looks like since the Central Valley is a hub for cultural diversity. 

Moranski explained that the university has recruiters in the central valley, and that this semester, we had outreach in Colorado, Hawaii and Washington. SSU is looking to continue recruiting in additional states that have schools that are a part of the Western Undergraduate Exchange program (WUE). The WUE provides tuition savings for students. According to Moranski, there has been an 18% increase in out of state students attending SSU, specifically an increase in enrollment from states in the west.

Time will tell whether these outreach strategies prove to be effective at increasing enrollment.