Enrollment to Increase

This weekend, the Board of Trustees approved the proposal to increase student enrollment for the next four years, beginning with the class of 2013. Although the decision will not become official until the trustees approve the University’s budget in May, admissions will be accepting students with the target of matriculating 745 incoming freshman next fall.  The increase, which could increase the campus population by 120 students over four years, will last indefinitely, but trustees hope to eventually restore the former average class size of 715 students. The enrollment increase will generate approximately four million dollars of additional revenue per year once it has been fully enacted.

This decision was one of many discussed during Saturday’s trustee meeting concerning the financial crisis.  With no signs of an economic recovery in the near future, the University’s endowment, which has already suffered a twenty percent loss, is expected to deteriorate further.

“Our pessimistic predictions were not pessimistic enough,” said President Michael Roth during a Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) meeting on Sunday.

This is not the first time the University has expanded the student body in response to harsh economic realities.  During the recession of the 1970s, the administration made the decision to more than double the student population, and dramatically increased population from 1,100 students to today’s approximately 2,800 students.

With only a five percent increase to the student population, the expansion to begin next year will be substantially less severe, but it may have noticeable effects on campus life.

Student resources, including health facilities, extracurricular activities and dining services, may be overburdened as spending per student drops. 

Although Residential Life (ResLife) will look into opening up more spaces for housing, some students worry how the addition of more students might affect housing options over time. With no clear-cut plans to add additional housing, more students could potentially be tripled, perhaps eventually resulting in a housing crunch for upperclassmen, as well.

The increase to individual class size is also of particular concern to both students and faculty. Michael Roth has stated he is committed to preserving the academic goals of the University, and will look into adding more sections to classes that are in high demand. 

Since U.S. News and World Reports take student-teacher ratios and endowment-per-student levels into consideration in its rankings, some students speculate that an increase in class size could negatively impact the University’s rankings. This issue is of potential concern because Wesleyan’s ranking has dropped three places in two years. According to President Roth, however, peer institutions such as Williams and Bowdoin are both considering increasing their enrollment as well.

Mike Pernick ’10, WSA president, expressed his conviction that although this solution is necessary, it is undesirable and must remain temporary.

“If we’re going to make sacrifices, its necessary that we don’t maintain them for longer than they need to be,” he said.

Pernick discussed the difficulty that might result from attempting to cut back the University’s student population after it becomes accustomed to the additional revenue. By the time enrollment cuts are to be brought into consideration, there may be new administrators, faculty, students and board members unfamiliar to a smaller Wesleyan, and with no incentive to restore the former class size. 

President Roth, however, remains optimistic that enrollment can be cut back in the future, particularly with the addition of summer programs that will provide an additional sources of income to the University.

In order to assess the impacts of expanded enrollment on campus life, the Board has agreed to a WSA proposal for an annual enrollment discussion to take place each fall between the trustees, President Roth, administrators and WSA members.

“[The discussions] will force the administration to do a study on the full impact of taxing our facilities without increasing spending,” Pernick said.

The discussions will also allow Trustees to question the increase.  Additionally, trustees will be given the flexibility to scale back the increase in the next four years if appropriate.  Roth originally proposed to add thirty students per year for the next four years, but Trustees may decide to admit fewer additional students each year after the class of 2013.

With even more drastic budgetary adjustments—such as cuts to financial aid and lay-offs—now on the table, administrators and Board members stress that increasing class size is a necessary measure to effectively curb the budget deficit.