Dive Brief:
- Western Illinois University plans to cut 57 faculty positions — 40 of which are tenured or tenure track — and 32 staff positions as part of an effort to become more fiscally sustainable, the institution said Friday.
- The public university will also move 16 positions from its Quad Cities campus to its main Macomb campus in 2025 as the university streamlines operations and adjusts its offerings at Quad Cities to focus on select areas.
- Those moves follow earlier budget initiatives by the university that included a hiring freeze, reducing student aid, elimination of 100 vacant positions, the nonrenewal of 35 faculty contracts and departmental consolidation.
Dive Insight:
Western Illinois joins an ever-growing list of institutions that are downsizing their operations to manage financial pressures.
“In order to address financial stability, we must recognize that our institution, like so many others across the country, must be the right size and the right shape to serve this number of students,” Western Illinois Interim President Kristi Mindrup said in the release.
As Mindrup alluded, the university has faced steep enrollment drops in recent years. Between 2017 and 2022, fall headcount fell 19% to 7,643 students. And that figure is down by 39.3% from 2010 levels, per federal data.
With enrollment dropping and costs increasing, Western Illinois has wrestled with mounting budget deficits. In fiscal 2023, its deficit rose to $12.5 million from $4.1 million the year before, according to its latest financials.
As it tries to shrink its budget and operations, the university said it has worked to minimize the impact on students and maintain “high-quality academic programs, excellent services and engaging on-campus experience.”
The university said it would “actively explore new revenue opportunities and cost-saving measures to stabilize the budget,” adding that it would look to attract new markets of students, increase retention and transfers, and respond to workforce development needs.
The university’s governing board authorized the institution to make cuts during a meeting earlier this month. Before Western Illinois published details on Aug. 9, the cuts drew protests and criticism from students, staff and employee union leaders.
“Layoffs are not a plan,” Merrill Cole, president of the Western Illinois chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois — which represents faculty and staff — said in a statement last week before the full details were announced. “They are a desperate attempt by this administration to appear as if they are taking bold action.”
