Justin Dunmyre doesn’t remember exactly when he was told that Frostburg State University was facing a deficit, but he does remember his reaction.

“I was shocked,” the mathematics professor and faculty senate chair said of the university’s $7.7 million deficit. “How did this happen?”

The deficit was formally announced in August, and by December, the public university in Western Maryland had eliminated some teaching positions and announced other cost-cutting measures. Leadership at the 3,300-student, 260-acre campus has also closed buildings they deemed underutilized, cut athletics funding and merged administrative departments in an effort to get the deficit under control.

Besides shrinking enrollment and issues with the FAFSA, there was one issue that Al Delia, senior advisor to the president, blamed for the deficit: state budget cuts.

“We knew we were facing financial difficulties, and then the state rescinded more funding,” Delia said earlier this month.

Soon, other colleges in the University System of Maryland could be in a similar predicament. Gov. Wes Moore earlier this month proposed $111 million in cuts to the system amid the state’s $3 billion deficit. All 12 of the system’s institutions will have to tighten their belts.

The cuts to higher education were expected, for some.

“Policymakers typically see universities as being more flexible because they can raise their tuition,” said Amy Li, a professor specializing in the finance of higher education at the Florida International University.

Moore’s budget projected tuition would rise by 2.2% across the university system.

The University of Maryland College Park should be fine, Li said. UMD President Darryll Pines said last month that the university will “probably not” be able to give out cost-of-living and merit raises, which they’ve given to employees over the last five fiscal years, but there likely won’t be any major changes at the flagship institution.

But at smaller, public regional schools like Frostburg, the cuts could be detrimental.

“Policymakers typically don’t see them as access institutions that really need the funding to serve students who are from underprivileged backgrounds, but they’re also not a part of this elite group of universities that can be selective and have other ways to keep operations going,” Li said.

A loss of some state funding is highly unlikely to cause a public university to close in Maryland, she said, but it could alter the way the colleges run, providing a sort of “death by a thousand cuts” scenario later on.

Frostburg is expecting an additional $3.1 million slashed from its $109 million annual budget. “FSU will tighten our belts as much as possible, without impacting the quality of the education we provide to students, to meet the budget requirements asked of us,” Delia said in a statement after the governor’s budget proposal was unveiled. “We will, once again, be looking carefully at ways we can decrease costs and increase revenues in the coming year.”

For Frostburg, it’s just the latest in a series of financial blows.

According to an email from the president’s office to faculty and staff in August, the state cut the university’s budget by $1 million last summer and did not “fully support” other rising costs, like funding for cost-of-living adjustments and merit raises.

“Just ten days into the new fiscal year, the state announced a significant cut to existing state budgets, requiring FSU to reduce state funding by an additional $546,000, leaving the cut to Frostburg at more than $1.5 million,” the email read.

That means that in the span of one year, the state university will see cuts of over $4 million.

Frostburg leaders determined last summer they’d need to cut about 45 tenure and tenure-track faculty positions, said Delia, who once served as the college’s acting president. But that number shrank dramatically thanks to professors who were retiring and won’t be replaced.

Four full-time, non-tenure-track instructors will not have their contracts renewed; 11 adjunct faculty will not be called back; and three tenure-track faculty members and one tenured faculty member will be laid off. Frostburg State is saving about $4.875 million from that.

The student-to-faculty ratio will rise to about 16 to 1, from 13 to 1, which Delia said is more realistic for the university.

But the departures, especially the retirement of professors who have been at the university for decades, impacts both the faculty and student experience, said Dunmyre, the faculty senate chair.

“You don’t typically have students coming up to the faculty saying, ‘Are you OK?’ But they have been,” he said. “They’re noticing that we’re beaten down.”

Students will also be less likely to take the classes they want, Dunmyre predicted. And, with the student-to-faculty ratio increasing, class sizes will grow.

“I don’t think every department is going to be able to offer every program that it has offered,” he said. “Students are going to start seeing fewer options, and I don’t think that’s to their benefit.”

Leadership is also changing. President Ronald Nowaczyk, who served at the helm of the university since 2016, announced suddenly in mid-January that he would depart at the end of the month, citing his health.

Dunmyre said he’s never seen morale this low.

“It’s hard to pick up new projects if you’re worried about whether or not you’ll still have a job,” he said. “Service to the university has dropped, people are vanishing from committees. Staff and faculty relations have really strained.”

With new higher education cuts on the horizon, Dunmyre’s outlook is bleak.

“I think that other schools in the system are going to go through retrenchment, there’s not doubt in my mind about that,” he said.

About the Education Hub

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