Drexel University Lays Off 60 Staffers Due to Lowered Enrollment

Drexel University Lays Off 60 Staffers Due to Lowered Enrollment

Unfortunately for Drexel, they are just the type of school for these problems. A medium sized, private school. All of this was predicted.

The College Fix reports:

Drexel U. lays off 60 staffers due to enrollment drop, ‘flawed’ FAFSA rollout

Drexel University is laying off 60 employees this fall, citing budget cuts due to a decrease in student enrollment and increased operating costs.

The cuts at the private Philadelphia institution, announced late last month, are part of a larger trend linked to declining enrollment at universities across the country.

“The decision to lay off members of our professional staff is never made lightly,” the university stated in the announcement, Inside Higher Ed reported. “This is part of Drexel’s plan for resolving an approximate 10% imbalance in its operating budget in order to ensure resilience amid financial headwinds facing the higher education sector.”

Will Grogan, a previous program manager of Drexel’s Construction Management curriculum, was among the employees who lost their jobs.

Grogan said he was thankful for his supervisor’s transparency in a conversation with The College Fix on LinkedIn.

“I was very grateful that my supervisor was honest and compassionate about the situation that was outside of either of our control,” he told The Fix.

“I’m leaving behind some fantastic students and priceless colleagues. 6 years and 9 months is the longest I’ve ever been somewhere besides grade school,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post.

In a message to the campus in October, Interim President Denis O’Brien blamed the university’s financial troubles, in part, on the “flawed rollout” of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

The revised FAFSA came out three months late and was followed by glitches. The Department of Education estimated approximately 30 percent of college applications were affected, The Fix reported earlier this year.

O’Brien said the university came about 500 students short of its enrollment goal this year, and the decline added $22 million to the current budget deficit.

He attributed “increased investments both in financial aid to promote access and affordability and in student supports to ensure their success and wellbeing, and rising costs associated with doing business” as the main drivers of the university’s budget imbalance.

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