In separate meetings this weekend with the Board of Trustees and the Board’s Finance Committee, President Roth discussed new measures that may have to be taken in response to the University’s budgetary crisis. If the deficit worsens, the University may consider reducing financial aid to transfer students. Other responses that have been discussed but are less likely include “gapping”—offering financial aid packages that do not fully meet demonstrated need— or taking waitlisted students’ ability to pay into consideration during admissions. These are only three of many possible measures suggested by an outside consulting group, Scannel & Kurz, as President Roth immediately rejected the vast majority of their proposals since he considered them too extreme.

While there is no longer a projected budget deficit for next year, President Roth and Vice President for Finance and Administration John Meerts presented a variety of contingencies to the Board of Trustees on Saturday, which would total in over $10 million in savings. Many of the options are likely to be adopted if the University’s endowment continues to shrink. “Moderation of financial aid growth” was one of the options discussed, along with extension of the salary freeze for faculty and staff for a second year, introduction of staff furloughs, increasing faculty teaching responsibilities, layoffs, reduction of major maintenance, benefit and graduate programs, and the reduction of athletics and other co-curricular programs. The elimination of WESU, Green Street and WesPress would also be considered. According to WSA sources, many of these proposals will be adopted if the endowment, currently at $488 million, drops below $400 million.

Although no actual proposals regarding financial aid have been made yet, WSA President Mike Pernick indicated that the mere discussion of the topic was significant.

“This is the first time that the board has had any real discussion about dipping into financial aid,” he said.

President Roth described choosing which funding to cut as being a very difficult process, guided by a need to stay true to his vision of Wesleyan’s guiding principles.

“The question that we need to ask is, how can we preserve as much of our core values as possible?” Roth said in an open meeting with the WSA on Monday.

While deciding which areas the decrease in funds will affect is a difficult process, Roth also said that he viewed it as an opportunity to review all of the University’s spending and to see if funds are being spent in the best way possible.

“We will be looking at all of our departments and determining if they are essential to our mission,” he said. He did express hope for the near future, saying, “I think we have the budget under control for next year.”

The financial aid budget does take up a significant portion of the University’s funds, and is growing steadily, due to factors such as inflation and tuition increases. The financial aid budget is expected to double over the next ten years. SBC Chair Chris Goy ’09 emphasized just what this will mean for the University.

“In a decade or less, financial aid is going to be costing the university a quarter of its budget every year,” he said. “[The financial aid budget] is similar to the Social Security or Medicare programs for the government in terms of rapidly increasing costs and overall size in the percentage of the total budget.”

In the WSA meeting, Roth explained just how hard it is to address the issue of reducing financial aid.

“It’s essential to Wesleyan that our students are here because of their talent and because of their capacity to succeed as students,” he said. “For that reason the first the thing I did was change the way we do financial aid to decrease the use of required student loans.”

Even so, Roth presented the possibility of keeping financial aid as it is, but as a result having students arrive at Wesleyan without the benefits of small class sizes and exceptional faculty.

“That’s not Wesleyan,” he said.

“Nobody wants to change financial aid or undermine our status as a need-blind and full-need institution,” said Mike Pernick, President of the WSA.  “Hopefully it won’t come to the point where we would be forced to go down that road.”

There are members of the board who supported measures such as the adjustment of financial aid for a temporary period rather than the elimination of programs that cannot be easily started over, such as WESU or athletic teams. President Roth, however, is very reluctant to pursue that option.

“There are people who want to reduce financial aid,” he said. “I am very opposed to that.”

For the time being, no changes will be made to the financial aid program.

“No decisions need to be made until the end of the calendar year,” Pernick said. “I suspect the conversation will continue in the May Board meeting, but no final decisions would be made until the fall,”

In an email to the Argus, Vice President Meerts reiterated that, for now at least, Wesleyan is strongly committed to providing the financial aid that students need in order to be here.

“The Wesleyan Board and administration is strongly committed to a robust financial aid program,” he wrote. “We are currently planning more than an 8% increase to the financial aid budget for next year, and we plan to continue to support this program in the future.”