Christina Westman dreamed of working with Parkinson\u2019s disease and stroke patients as a music therapist when she started studying at St. Cloud State University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But her schooling was upended in May when administrators at the Minnesota college announced a plan to eliminate its music department as it slashes 42 degree programs and 50 minors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s part of a wave of program cuts<\/u><\/a> in recent months, as U.S. colleges large and small try to make ends meet. Among their budget challenges: Federal COVID relief money is now gone, operational costs are rising and fewer high school graduates are going straight to college<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The cuts mean more than just savings, or even job losses. Often, they create turmoil for students<\/u><\/a> who chose a campus because of certain degree programs and then wrote checks or signed up for student loans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor me, it\u2019s really been anxiety-ridden,\u201d said Westman, 23, as she began the effort that ultimately led her to transfer to Augsburg University in Minneapolis. \u201cIt\u2019s just the fear of the unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At St. Cloud State, most students will be able to finish their degrees before cuts kick in, but Westman\u2019s music therapy major was a new one that hadn\u2019t officially started. She has spent the past three months in a mad dash to find work in a new city and sublet her apartment in St. Cloud after she had already signed a lease. She was moving into her new apartment Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For years, many colleges held off making cuts, said Larry Lee, who was acting president of St. Cloud State but left last month to lead Blackburn College in Illinois.<\/p>\n\n\n\n College enrollment declined<\/u><\/a> during the pandemic, but officials hoped the figures would recover to pre-COVID levels and had used federal relief money to prop up their budgets in the meantime, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey were holding on, holding on,\u201d Lee said, noting colleges must now face their new reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Higher education made up some ground last fall and in the spring semester, largely as community college enrollment began to rebound<\/u><\/a>, National Student Clearinghouse Research Center data showed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the trend for four-year colleges remains worrisome. Even without growing concerns about the cost of college and the long-term burden of student debt, the pool of young adults is shrinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Birth rates fell<\/u><\/a> during the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009 and never recovered. Now those smaller classes are preparing to graduate and head off to college.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult math to overcome,\u201d said Patrick Lane, vice president at the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, a leading authority on student demographics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Complicating the situation: the federal government\u2019s chaotic overhaul of its financial aid application<\/u><\/a>. Millions of students entered summer break still wondering where they were going to college this fall and how they would pay for it. With jobs still plentiful, although not as much as last year<\/u><\/a>, some experts fear students won\u2019t bother to enroll at all<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis year going into next fall, it\u2019s going to be bad,\u201d said Katharine Meyer, a fellow in the Governance Studies program for the Brown Center on Education Policy at the nonprofit Brookings Institution. \u201cI think a lot of colleges are really concerned they\u2019re not going to make their enrollment targets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many colleges like St. Cloud State already had started plowing through their budget reserves. The university\u2019s enrollment rose to around 18,300 students in fall 2020 before steadily falling to about 10,000 students in fall 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n St. Cloud State\u2019s student population has now stabilized, Lee said, but spending was far too high for the reduced number of students. The college\u2019s budget shortfall totaled $32 million over the past two years, forcing the sweeping cuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some colleges have taken more extreme steps, closing<\/u><\/a> their doors. That happened at the 1,000-student Birmingham-Southern College<\/u><\/a> in Alabama, the 900-student Fontbonne University<\/u><\/a> in Missouri, the 350-student Wells College in New York and the 220-student Goddard College in Vermont.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cuts, however, appear to be more commonplace. Two of North Carolina\u2019s public universities<\/u><\/a> got the green light last month to eliminate more than a dozen degree programs ranging from ancient Mediterranean studies to physics<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Arkansas State University announced last fall it was phasing out nine programs. Three of the 64 colleges in the State University of New York system have cut programs amid low enrollment and budget woes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other schools slashing and phasing out programs include West Virginia University<\/u><\/a>, Drake University in Iowa, the University of Nebraska campus in Kearney, North Dakota State University and, on the other side of the state, Dickinson State University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Experts say it\u2019s just the beginning. Even schools that aren\u2019t immediately making cuts are reviewing their degree offerings. At Pennsylvania State University, officials are looking for duplicative and under-enrolled academic programs as the number of students shrinks at its branch campuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Particularly affected are students in smaller programs and those in the humanities<\/u><\/a>, which now graduate<\/u><\/a> a smaller share of students than 15 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s a humanitarian disaster for all of the faculty and staff involved, not to mention the students who want to pursue this stuff,\u201d said Bryan Alexander, a Georgetown University senior scholar who has written on higher education. \u201cIt\u2019s an open question to what extent colleges and universities can cut their way to sustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Terry Vermillion, who just retired after 34 years as a music professor at St. Cloud State, the cuts are hard to watch. The nation\u2019s music programs took a hit during the pandemic<\/u><\/a>, he said, with Zoom band nothing short of \u201cdisastrous\u201d for many public school programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe were just unable to really effectively teach music online, so there\u2019s a gap,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd, you know, we\u2019re just starting to come out of that gap and we\u2019re just starting to rebound a little bit. And then the cuts are coming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For St. Cloud State music majors such as Lilly Rhodes, the biggest fear is what will happen as the program is phased out. New students won\u2019t be admitted to the department and her professors will look for new jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen you suspend the whole music department, it\u2019s awfully difficult to keep ensembles alive,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s no musicians coming in, so when our seniors graduate, they go on, and our ensembles just keep getting smaller and smaller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s a little difficult to keep going if it\u2019s like this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n