Mizzou Protests Lead to Plunge In Freshmen, Massive Budget Deficits

TRIGGER WARNING:

The fallout from the fake Mizzou protests continues to destablize the University of Missouri. Today the interim chancellor of the university emailed students that the university will enroll 1500 less students than projected and faces a budget shortfall of $32 million this year.

While the 1500 fewer students aren't broken out by year, the vast majority of them will come from the entering freshman class. How substantial is the decline in enrollment? Based on Mizzou admission data from past years we're talking about a potential 20% drop in enrolled freshmen.

That's staggering. 

Here was the email from interim chancellor Hank Foley:

"Dear university community,

I am writing to you today to confirm that we project a very significant budget shortfall due to an unexpected sharp decline in first-year enrollments and student retention this coming fall. I wish I had better news.

The anticipated declines—which total about 1,500 fewer students than current enrollment at MU— in addition to a small number of necessary investments are expected to leave us with an approximate $32 million budget gap for next year. A smaller entering freshman class will have continuing impact on finances as they progress toward their degrees at MU... 

Given that these declines are the result of drops in first-time student enrollments and retention of enrolled students, there are a number of initiatives and projects currently underway to stem the tide in both the short- and long-term. We are reaching out to admitted students who have not yet enrolled and to their parents with phone calls, Skype calls, videos and a text campaign – all of which involve current students, faculty and administrators throughout the university. We also are in the process of adding more out-of-state recruiters and we are redesigning all our Admissions materials to ensure they meet the expectations and needs of prospective students. I have also asked Admissions to develop a new web-based admissions platform that is streamlined and that will involve live feedback to prospective students. The goal is to make it easy to apply and to know very quickly what their prospects are for admission to MU. The key is to be faster, more personal and much more interactive.

To this end, we are implementing the following guidelines for FY17 budget planning. We will:

Impose a cut of 5 percent to all annual recurring general revenue budgets (rate dollars) without exception. Should the current assumptions that led to a $32 million gap be absolutely accurate, we will be $10 million short of balancing our recurring budget. A gap of that nature will be addressed in FY17 with reserves (cost dollars), and then any additional cuts necessary to balance the recurring budget will be carried into the following year.

We are implementing an across-the-board hiring freeze for all units on campus. We urge all campus administrators to carefully review their staffing levels and to not refill any positions unless they are absolutely necessary to the mission. Decisions to add faculty or staff must be exceptional, but will be left to the discretion of the deans, vice chancellors, vice provosts and the director of athletics.

We will not have an annual merit increase program this year. Effectively that means merit increases are at zero for the entire campus. Promotional increases for faculty will still be provided.

While these budget challenges will affect our ability to deliver teaching, research and service to Missourians in the short term, we also know that we have survived other stressors of this kind before. We will endeavor as a campus to make decisions on these reductions that will least hamper our ability to deliver our core mission. We also will seek to build on the strengths of this university as we move forward." 

Wow. 

Congrats to the Mizzou protesters on their fake protest. You -- in conjunction with your idiot football players who also went on strike -- have nearly killed a great university over a poop swastika, an alleged off campus racial slur that may not have even happened, and one racial slur on campus from a non-student in the past year. Oh, and your top faculty defender, Melissa Click, the woman who demanded muscle to confront student reporters on your quad, is suing saying her firing wasn't justified.  

Hope it was worth it.

P.S. almost all current Mizzou students hate the protesters and think they're full of shit. Here's a great letter from a current student that we featured on Outkick a couple of weeks ago.

P.P.S props to ESPN for paying Spike Lee to glorify the fake protests with a documentary on them that he's currently filming on campus. That should really help enrollment too.