YSU Deficit projections loom over budget for 2004 fiscal year

About 80 percent of YSU students receive financial aid.
By JoANNE VIVIANO
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Youngstown State University's forecasted 2004 budget shows that even a 12 percent increase in tuition next fall wouldn't pull the university out of the red.
With expected expenses of $119.5 million and expected revenue of $111.4 million, the 2004 fiscal year, which begins July 1, 2003, would end with an $8.1 million shortfall without a tuition increase, according to figures presented Wednesday by Dr. David C. Sweet, YSU president, and Terry R. Ondreyka, vice president for financial affairs.
An 8 percent tuition increase would shrink the deficit to $3.5 million; a 10 percent increase would shrink it to $2.4 million. With a 12 percent tuition increase, the deficit would fall to $1.2 million.
"As a university administrative team, we are committed to ... quality programming," Sweet said. "Unfortunately one is confronted with the decline of revenue, as we have been presented by the state, and the students are forced to pay the price."
The proposed budget has yet to be presented to the YSU Board of Trustees for review. Figures are based on an estimated 9,965 full-time students, based on a two-year enrollment average, administrators said. Numbers account for no new enrollment increase.
Previous raise
YSU raised tuition by 8.9 percent this fall, the highest one-time increase in a decade. Tuition jumped 5.1 percent last fall and 5.5 percent last spring.
Current annual tuition at YSU -- $4,996 -- remains at a level anywhere from $365 to $2,600 below the state's 10 other four-year public universities, administrators said.
A graph shows the decrease in the amount of state support to the university over the past five years, Sweet said. In those five years, student tuition moved from funding 45 percent of the university budget to 55 percent.
Ondreyka explained that the university was hit with "permanent reductions out of the base budget" of about $2.8 million in state legislative funding and about $1.4 million in state student-share-of-instruction funding.
That, coupled with staff and administrative salary increases, has meant a projected deficit in 2004.
Staying competitive
To compete with other universities, YSU must continue to keep and improve the quality of its programs, Sweet said. Research presented to him Wednesday shows that prospective YSU students and their parents are most concerned with quality programs and faculty, Ondreyka said. Value came in near the bottom of a list of 12 criteria.
In quality-improvement areas, Sweet said, the university has increased tenured faculty by 15, increased the number of class sections by 125 and devoted funds to remodel facilities.
Student financial aid
Sweet said another way the university hopes to encourage enrollment is to inform prospective students of the growth in the university's student financial-support opportunities, such as scholarships, grants, loans and work programs. About 80 percent of students receive some type of financial aid.
In 1998, those programs provided students with $44.7 million in support. In 2002, they provided $62.7 million.
Sweet said information about these offerings will be packaged so current and prospective students will better know their options.
"The focus of access is a very important one, and the issue of making college tuition at a level that allows access is something we always have to be cognizant of," Sweet said. "But the issue of quality is most important."