The drop in Middle Eastern students at Idaho State University in the past few years left ISU with a $12 million shortfall, President Arthur Vailas told legislative budget writers this morning. “We are one of the many schools in the United States that had a significant impact on the change in policies of student scholarships from the Middle East,” Vailas told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee. “It’s a 35 percent decline, and of course that’s going to impact revenue. At the same time we continue to get slight increases in non-resident domestic. But that decline ended up in a shortfall of $12 million dollars. We have a very good plan, we believe we will be able to rebalance revenue and expenses in the future,” he said. “We’re very comfortable we’ll be able to maintain that balance.”

At one point, ISU had 1,200 Saudi and Kuwaiti students, almost 10 percent of its enrollment, up from just 16 of those students in 2006; there were concerns about cultural, language and academic challenges, and complaints of discrimination and harassment. Last spring, the Saudi government announced deep cuts in its scholarship program that supports foreign students, including those at U.S. institutions.

A New York Times article last March was headlined, “The Mideast came to Idaho State. It wasn’t the best fit.” A university official told the Times that Saudi and Kuwaiti government cuts to scholarships would mean no Middle Eastern freshmen would arrive at ISU this fall, cutting enrollment by more than 250, on top of 100 Saudi students who already had chosen to leave.

Vailas spoke out in favor of Gov. Butch Otter’s budget proposal for higher education for next year, which only reflects a 2.2 percent increase in state general funds and 1.2 percent in total funds, but actually recommends slightly more for ISU than it requested, at $151.5 million in total funds. Vailas also spoke strongly in support of Otter’s proposal for a $35 million building program at Idaho university campuses, which is in the state’s Permanent Building Fund budget. “Ten million of that is for ISU,” Vailas said. He called the Gale Life Sciences Building remodel, for which the funds are targeted, “critical.”

“You know we have a significant challenge with our infrastructure,” Vailas told the joint committee. “There’s not going to be ever enough money to catch up. But yet we continuously invest internally in the fixing and repurposing of things to align with the interest of students.”

Vailas also backed the governor’s 3 percent merit-raise proposal for state employees; and Otter’s “adult completers” scholarship proposal. “ISU has quite a few of those,” he said. “We have nontraditional students. … Those that have dropped out, we monitored them and they didn’t go anywhere. They just needed the funds to finish it. So the adult completers program is critical.”