ISU enrollment down 9 percent

POCATELLO, Idaho – Idaho State University could lose as much as $1 million because of a 9 percent drop in enrollment numbers, administrators said.

The shortfall isn’t expected to lead to any immediate full-time positions being cut at the school, although departments may feel a pinch next year. The state’s budget appropriation formula uses the previous year’s enrollment numbers to calculate funding levels.

For now, ISU Financial Vice President Ken Prolo said student services and athletics will likely feel the budget pinch because they rely heavily on revenue from student fees, the Idaho State Journal reported.

The school’s enrollment dropped from nearly 14,000 students last year to 12,676 students this year.

“We saw it coming last year, but we didn’t recognize it would be so severe,” Prolo said.

Some adjunct faculty positions may be cut this semester, eliminating some classes, Prolo said, and the university may also hold off on hiring people to fill vacant positions until a later date.

“There’s nothing we can do to remove (current) positions because of the contracts,” he said. “There’s no talk of resource changes.”

ISU President Arthur Vailas has asked all the school’s deans to regularly provide their enrollment numbers and said a higher priority will be placed on enrollment. But Lee Krehbiel, the school’s interim dean of students, said the university is still about a month away from coming up with a comprehensive plan to deal with the shortfall.