ENROLLMENT MEANS SEMO REVENUE SHORTFALL

A drop in enrollment at Southeast Missouri State University this fall will result in a $500,000 to $600,000 shortfall in tuition revenue, school officials said Tuesday.

"We're trying to make up the tuition loss," Southeast President Kala Stroup said.

The university's top four administrators, including Stroup, discussed the budget problem at a nearly two-hour open forum in Dempster Auditorium in the Crisp Hall of Nursing.

About 50 students, faculty and staff members attended the meeting, where Stroup and her top three administrators -- Executive Vice President Ken Dobbins, Provost Charles Kupchella and Vice President of Student Affairs SueAnn Strom -- fielded questions from the audience on a variety of topics.

Southeast's enrollment stands at 8,084 this fall, a drop of 360 from last year.

"What we have lost are our student fees," said Stroup.

She said university officials had expected that tougher admission requirements and the relatively small pool of high school graduates would affect enrollment.

But Stroup said Southeast's budget for the current fiscal year had projected the university would get a greater number of community college transfers and retain more students. When that didn't occur, the university was left with a revenue problem, she said.

Stroup and the other administrators said they hope to make up the shortfall by not filling some university positions at least temporarily, a procedure called "salary shrinkage." That could include eliminating some positions of term faculty, those who are hired on a year-by-year contract.

All of the university's divisions may experience some budget cuts next year to make up for the shortfall, officials said.

For the Academic Affairs division, the cuts could total about $400,000, Kupchella said. "We haven't really settled on the exact part of the bill that Academic Affairs will pay."

He said budget cuts in that area will be based on the enrollment declines in the academic colleges. With fewer students, there won't be the need for as many faculty, he said.

It's estimated that $164,000 may be cut from the College of Liberal Arts budget, Kupchella said. The college has the most faculty members of any of Southeast's colleges.

But Stroup and Kupchella stressed that the projected budget cuts shouldn't cause any serious problems.

Stroup said the shortfall only amounts to about 1 percent of Southeast's approximately $60 million budget.

Budget cuts are nothing new. "We have learned to do this well," she said. The university, explained Stroup, has learned to cope with tight state funding in recent years.

"It's not the end-of-the-world kind of thing here," observed Kupchella. "It shouldn't cause a great deal of difficulty. I think this is easily, although stressfully, doable."

Kupchella said nearly $300,000 was cut from the Academic Affairs budget for the current fiscal year, so cutting a similar amount should not be a problem for the next fiscal year.

Stroup said the university wants to keep a ratio of one faculty member for every 18 students.

Vice President Strom, whose Student Affairs division faces salary shrinkage totaling more than $100,000, said efforts are being made to boost enrollment while retaining tough admission standards. Boosting enrollment would help address the budget problem, she said.

Stroup said Southeast had been getting poorly prepared students in recent years before imposing tougher admission requirements.

"This institution was on the slide," she said.

Southeast was spending a lot of money on developmental classes.

"Seventy-five percent of our students were in developmental math of one kind or another," said Stroup.

The Board of Regents approved a tougher admissions policy in 1990. Since then, Southeast has rejected about 1,000 prospective students who didn't meet the requirements.