Posted on 06/13/2024 5:29:32 PM PDT by george76
St. Cloud State University finalizes plan to cut back on degrees, minors amidst budget problems
Nearly one in three degree programs at St. Cloud State University will get the ax, due to budgetary problems.
Roughly 60 percent of minors are also getting the boot at the public university, according to a recent announcement.
“In a presentation to the campus community on Tuesday, SCSU Acting President Larry Lee confirmed the university will suspend 42 degree programs and 50 minor programs,” KARE 11 reported yesterday.
The news outlet reported that other cuts were made last year as well.
“The reductions will leave SCSU with a total academic portfolio of 94 degree programs (62 bachelor’s degrees, 29 master’s degrees, and three doctoral degrees) and 35 minor programs,” the news outlet reported. “According to the university, 92% of current students are enrolled in one of the 94 remaining academic programs.”
The school is also cutting faculty, staff, and administrative programs.
The cuts include ending minors in “Ethnic Studies,” “Chicano Studies,” and “Asian-Pacific American Studies.”
Music, hospitality, Spanish, and sociology undergraduate degrees will also be eliminated, according to KARE 11.
St. Cloud State “experienced an $18 million net operating loss in fiscal year 2023, and is expected to lose $15 million in 2024,” KARE 11 previously reported in May.
“The higher education landscape is facing unprecedented struggles – student enrollment declines, affordability concerns, a proliferation of higher education alternatives, public perception of college degrees, and financial strains…among others,” Lee told the university community in May. “These circumstances negatively impact higher education, generally, and St. Cloud State University, specifically.”
Enrollment at the university actually increased this year. However, the university enrolled 8,000 fewer students than it did in 2010. Its enrollment has generally decreased each year, the Star Tribune reported in October 2023.
Other universities have cut or are considering ending various degree programs due to enrollment and budget issues in the past several years.
UNC Greensboro announced plans in early 2024 to end twenty academic programs, The College Fix previously reported.
Henderson State University in Arkansas announced plans in 2022 to end 25 degree programs and fire 67 professors, The Fix previously reported.
West Virginia University is also exploring cuts to academic programs and faculty jobs due to budget issues, The Fix reported.
Meanwhile, a recent report found more than half of recent college grads work in jobs that do not require a degree.
Now democrats support wars. Funny thing happened on the road to Marxist Communist takeover - democrats are exposed as supporting violent disputes and war.
Oh they’re all for it if it’s their ideas at stake. They were all for the Civil War on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line until they lost. They should’ve ceased to exist as a national party back then.
CC
“Roughly 60 percent of minors are also getting the boot at the public university, according to a recent announcement.”
Kind of rude to not let the youngsters at least finish their degree work.
My mom got a two year “teaching certificate” from St. Cloud State in the early ‘40s. It enabled her to find a job teaching in a one room country school at a tiny town in west central Minnesota. After growing up with her sister and brother during the Depression with only a widowed mother as the family bread winner, it was the first time in her life that she had enough resources to eat properly. It was there she med my dad, and the rest is history.
I am surprised about the elimination of the economics major. St Cloud has always had a strong econ department going back to the late 1960’s. Also eliminating the physics major. Perhaps both majors are just too rigours for todays students.
They already have an incentive to slash STEM degree programs: money.
Thise programs cost way more to run and have lousy margins.
The artsy-farty and liberal arts programs are a two-fer for Big Ed and Deep State: They return big money while indoctrinatinp the boneheads signing up for them.
Bet a lot of the STEM stuff will be on the chopping block.
The schools will just keep quiet about it.
It used to be a nice city until the DFL and the Lutheran Social Services got involved. Lutheran Social Services, my keester. A cover name for an organization of leftists ruining the Lutheran name.
I see a lot of program majors that are dead ends for jobs. I also see many programs better addressed in technical schools than in four year universities. I have a friend who’s daughter graduated from a major private university with a degree in “Peace and Environmental Studies” and obviously couldn’t find a professional job.
“The school is also cutting faculty, staff, and administrative programs.”
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Let them find out what its like to work in the real world.
Finally. Massive campus bureaucracies collapsing under their own weight.
“Hospitality is the only degree on the list worth anything.”
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Not really. Grads will have to compete against too many foreigner born workers who will work for low wages and, as you say, willing to work their way up too. Also, if we go into a recession there will be less demand for hospitality jobs.
I know someone with that kind of degree and they don’t work in that industry.
Perfectly stated.
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