Trustees approve new budget, work on improving enrollment

On Nov. 2, Winthrop’s Board of Trustees met to review and approve the University’s budget and share updates from the committees on finance, enrollment and retention, student life and athletics, institutional advancement and development, and academic quality.

Justin Oates, vice president of finance and business, opened the meeting by presenting the budget for 2019. Due to a decrease in the number of students enrolled, roughly $4.4 million dollars were lost from the budget. Oates proposed a solution to make up for the lost revenue.

“We’ve been put into the situation where we need to reduce the budget now,” Oates said.

He said that the university should focus on managing vacancy savings, which are funds that arise when a faculty member resigns or leaves during the year, utilizing Courtyard funds and reducing the operating budget to $1.6 million.

The board voted to approve this plan. While there are specific meetings with divisions to decrease spending in some areas, across the board spending cuts will not be taking place.

One of the reasons for the decrease in enrollment was an increase in four year and five year graduation rates by 7.7% and 6.9%, respectively.

These increased rates were partially responsible for the loss in students. Not only are first year enrollment numbers down, but retention rates have dropped as well.

Julie Fowler, the chair of the committee on enrollment and retention, said that Winthrop is struggling to getting admitted applicants to commit and are losing out to other, larger institutions.

“The National Clearing House Report provides information to us on students who were admitted to WInthrop but chose to go somewhere else. Our applications are up, our inquiries are up, but closing the deal, sealing the deal and getting those students to actually commit is down,” Fowler said.

To help attract students to Winthrop, the committee on institutional advancement and development is working to increasing the number of events on campus, as well as dedicating 64% of the marketing budget toward digital marketing.

Improving retention rates was also a topic the board discussed. President Daniel Mahony said that adding new academic and non-academic programs, as well as destination programs that are unique to Winthrop, will help with retention rates.

Another hit to the budget came from less students opting to live on campus. Walk2Campus, a private off-campus apartment complex, is currently full and there was an increase in students who chose to live at home.

Approving a new budget and working to improve enrollment and retention were the main goals of the meeting. The board said that they hope Winthrop will see the benefits of these efforts in the coming months.