Dive Brief:

• Delta State University would cut $6.1 million from its fiscal 2025 budget under a proposed plan by President Daniel Ennis, who started in the role just under a year ago.
• Ennis’ plan calls for eliminating about 20 degree programs as well as a dozen staff positions. It also proposes new degrees and positions, including a proposed executive director of sponsored and special programs, and three new academic advisers for first-year students, including transfers.
• The public Mississippi university faces at least a $3 million budget gap and has been drawing on its cash reserves “until the point was reached where there was no capacity for anything beyond hand-to-mouth survival,” Ennis said in a Monday memo to campus.

Dive Insight:

In unveiling plans to make cuts at the college, Ennis alluded to the current financially beleaguered state of many colleges — as well as a past Delta State president, Kent Wyatt, and a previous era of retrenchment. 

“During the 1985-86 year, [Wyatt] had to eliminate 53 positions and cut $2.5 million (22%) from the operating budget,” Ennis said in his memo. “Fast forward 5 years, and Delta State experienced record enrollments and was considered the most fiscally sound university.”

Now, the university is once again facing cuts. 

Ennis tied his proposal to the university’s shrinking enrollment. Since 2017, total enrollment at Delta State has declined by nearly a third, to 2,556 students in 2022, according to federal data. Total enrollment has fallen by a precipitous 44.7% since 2011. 

To pare back the budget, Ennis proposed eliminating nearly two dozen degree programs, including bachelor degrees in art, English, history, mathematics, accounting and music. 

The university said the academic changes would affect 8% of Delta State’s student body. It also said the institution would provide a plan to students in affected majors to minimize disruption and so they can achieve their “academic program goals” at the university. 

At the same time, the president proposed new degrees that would serve to consolidate some of those that are being eliminated. Specifically, he recommended new interdisciplinary degrees in humanities and social sciences, and in visual and performing arts, as well as new degrees in digital media and secondary education. 

Ennis’ budget cuts also call for eliminating specific staff positions and support offices, along with other restructuring moves. He said officials could close the campus’s childcare center, which serves faculty and staff, if stakeholders can’t come up with a plan to address its projected operating losses of more than a quarter of a million dollars by November. 

“The changes I propose are intended to ensure that Delta State does not share the fate of those universities that have closed in recent years,” Ennis said. “These changes will be painful for some, but the distress caused by our continued struggles cannot continue.”