Drexel College plans to put off 60 employees members because it tries to stability its price range.
The cuts don’t apply to school and characterize lower than 1.4% of the non-public, Philadelphia-based establishment’s workforce, in keeping with an emailed assertion from the college.
One other 155 staff have opted into the college voluntary retirement incentive program, in keeping with Drexel.
“The choice to put off members of our skilled employees isn’t made flippantly,” the college stated. “That is a part of Drexel’s plan for resolving an approximate 10% imbalance in its working price range with a purpose to guarantee resilience amid monetary headwinds dealing with the upper schooling sector.”
College officers signaled that cuts have been coming earlier this fall after enrollment got here in need of projections, one thing they blamed on the troubled federal rollout of the Free Software for Federal Pupil Help. In addition they listed previous rising prices, elevated institutional support and spending on pupil help providers as driving its price range woes.
A decline in first-year college students this fall, particularly, led to a further $22 million hole in Drexel’s working price range, in keeping with the college. In October, the college famous that first-year undergraduate enrollment, at 2,350 college students, was on tempo to fall about 17.5% under preliminary estimates.
Like many schools, Drexel has a large share of scholars depending on federal support, making it susceptible to the FAFSA debacle. Within the 2021-22 educational 12 months, 25% of its undergraduates obtained Pell Grants and 49% took out federal pupil loans, in keeping with federal information.
The college stated in its assertion this week that it “stays well-positioned to navigate the shifting tides of upper schooling.”
“In service of its distinctive academic mannequin, the College is within the course of of reworking its educational construction, together with shifting to a semester schedule, and implementing a core competency curriculum to raised put together college students to reap the benefits of their experiential studying alternatives,” Drexel stated.