By Joe Vitale
A university-wide email sent on Tuesday revealed a number of realities the university is facing, including “erosion” in graduate school enrollment, upticks in undergraduate enrollment and a growing need to hike up tuition growth.
The email, signed by Rev. Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of the university, comes just days after a meeting on Friday during which the university announced its 2014 operating results. There, Frank Simio, the vice president for finance and interim Chief Financial Officer, said that seven of 10 schools failed to achieve its targeted tuition and fee revenues.
As a result, the university is planning to reorient some of its revenue focuses, including an increased focus on undergraduate enrollment.
Among those experiencing decreasing enrollment: The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Graduate School of Education, the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education and the Law Schoo.
The downticks, the university maintains, are not without cause. It cites “dramatic national downturns” as a reason for decreased enrollment in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Law. Likewise, decreased enrollment at the Graduate School of Education has not been helped by the shrinking numbers of schools in the region, the university explains. During Friday’s meeting, the university cited changes in the legal field as reason for decreased enrollment in the law school.
Two graduate schools did manage to escape enrollment trouble: both the Graduate School of Social Service and the Graduate School of Business Administration have seen growth in recent years.
In response to its struggle in graduate school enrollment, the university is looking to capitalize on undergraduate enrollment in the near future.
Following a high yield of applicants and rising interest in Lincoln Center schools, the university planned to expand the incoming class by 200 students. More students accepted admissions offers than planned, helping the university exceed its target by 50 percent. Calling an increase in its undergraduate enrollment “the wisest course of action,” the increase also reveals growth in the university’s undergraduate business school.
While Fordham College’s two campuses enrolled nearly 60 fewer students than expected, 140 more students than planned attended the Gabelli School of Business’ campuses. Despite its graduate school enrollment, Fordham was one of just 30 percent of private institutions to meet its undergraduate enrollment goals this year.
“Undergraduate schools are the heroes here,” said Frank Simio, vice president of finance and interim CFO, during Friday’s meeting.
Additionally noted during last week’s meeting was that the problematic fact that 93 percent of Fordham’s operating revenue continues to come from student tuition and fees. Such a dependency gives few alternatives to increasing tuition each year.
Realizing pressures from both Washington and market forces, the university said it constrained its tuition hike to 3.75 percent for the fiscal year 2015, a raise the university says is “the lowest increase in recent memory.” However, curbing tuition growth has its setbacks. Lower tuition growth rates yield lower revenue growth, and lower revenue constrains the university from affording rising costs.
Still, McShane expressed confidence in the university. After all, citing “an increasingly good reputation among our prospective student pool,” the university finished in March its 10-year capital campaign that raised more than $540 million — a sum $40 million higher than projected.
