Provost Julie Hurtig and VP of Finance Jason Broge sat down with the Northern Review to discuss the recent program, faculty, and staff cuts that have students concerned about the future of the University. These cuts are the result of a previously announced “program viability review” prompted by the looming “enrollment cliff”, where all Universities across the country are predicted to see a substantial drop in enrollment numbers beginning in 2026. Both officials talked about why the cuts needed to happen, how the University made its decisions, and what students can expect in the future.
Why
The ever-present “demographic cliff” or “enrollment cliff” seemed to be the driving force behind these cuts. When asked about the process by which the University came to its decision, Provost Hurtig gave a concise summary of what this “cliff” actually means “the economy of how many students are out in the world seeking education at a college level has changed drastically and will continue for the next 15 years based on the demographics that we see in infants in the United States.” Demographics, in this case, refers to levels of enrollment in university and trade programs compared to a growing decrease in birthrates.
VP Broge agreed, providing a car industry analogy to help explain the demand change: “And so it’s just [like the] car industry, we’re going to produce less cars because there’s less demand. We’ve got fewer inputs coming in from students and a number of students. So it’s that basic.”
Provost Hurtig further described the wide-reaching effect of the “cliff”:
“So it’s very easy to predict. We’ve seen this coming. It wasn’t a shock to us. It’s just that this is the time to react. And you’ll see numerous other stories from institutions across Ohio, across the United States that are reacting to these changes of the shift of what we call a demographic cliff, which is if you were to plot that on a scale, you’ll see this sharp decline in the number of 18 year olds.
This “cliff” is not a distant, hypothetical issue, but is fast approaching. Provost Hurtig described the timeline in the following phrase:
“It hits hard starting in 2026 and going forward.”
For more information about the data used in these decisions, students can go to the Fact Book, which lays out much of the information the University used for these program cuts
The problem, the data, and the timeline are identified, so what happens next?
How
VP Broge described the process in financial terms:
“Our primary mission is what we do academically here. Right? That’s our core, and it’s our deliverable if you look at it from a business perspective. Hence, that’s why we have to focus on how do we look at our portfolio of offerings and our core mission and still achieve that by still living within our means.”
Meeting the dual goal of financial responsibility and strong academic offerings is not an easy one. Provost Hurtig described the nuance of protecting student outcomes while making financial decisions.
“This is also a quantitative and qualitative process, though, so it’s not just a matter of calculus, of putting it through, and then the machine spits out the answer because we are very student focused here.”
“So I was motivated in my thoughts as provost to maintain that focus on where are the industries that our students who are here are entering and how does all this fit together. And so that’s what I used a lot as I tried to work with this puzzle of how to best make the cuts so that I was student centered and constantly focused on the fact that I want to harm as few people as possible with my decisions.”
This “non-calculus” is the overarching guide representing a holistic model for how the cuts were made. Provost Hurtig went into a bit more detail about the process:
“You put [all majors] all in the hopper together, and you have to look at how the fabric of that meshes together and where you have opportunities to make the cuts. The process was in December that we released a number of data repository information to each area [program]. Everybody could see everybody’s information, and the faculty went into that site and were given excel sheets to download, and they were able to look at their enrollments in each individual course, by faculty, by unit. They were able to see their completion data, of Ohio Northern, of how many students graduated in the programs, as well as look at other institutional data from other schools for completers, because there’s a United States Department of Education resource that does that. So we were trying to make sure that they had as much intel as we could feasibly put together in a quick manner that provided some statistics.”
The decision was not purely financial, as the University had to balance academic and placement outcomes for each major so programs with high grad school or job-placement rates were not put on the chopping block. Provost Hurtig explained this as follows:
“You have to keep in mind what you stand for and you have to keep in mind that our main focus has been that ability to say what is [the student] return on investment. And that is to have you be strongly placed and have a long fruitful career whether that be graduate school or into the industry that you want to join. Upon graduation we have that 96% placement rate. I was motivated in my thoughts as provost to maintain that focus on where are the industries that our students who are here are entering and how does all this fit together.”
The decisions aren’t finalized yet, but we now have a window into how the decisions were made. What should we as students expect for the future?
What
Students have voiced concerns about program cuts affecting their ability to get the degree they enrolled in. Provost Hurtig responded to these concerns with the following:
“But the current students [should know these] program[s] will still be on our accredited list of school programs that we run here at Northern.”
Both officials wanted students to know that none of the program cuts are finalized just yet.
“That’ll all finalize in May with Board of Trustee action when the president will take her final recommendation to the board. So in May is when things become more firm.”
The campus community is hearing about it now because the time has come to “go public with them within our family because of the shared governance. And we don’t expect the students to be left out of this. So we shared our recommendations to the students. That’s what you’ve seen.”
Polar Bear family involvement is welcome, and folks shouldn’t be scared to reach out with ideas. Provost Hurtig described what feedback they are looking for, stating: “I need people to push back and say what did you think about. ‘Did you do this. Did you not? I have this idea’ and they need to be allowed to put that information in because they might have that secret sauce that will make us make a different decision.”
Although these decisions are tough, students, faculty, and staff should temper their expectations about how things might change from the proposed recommendations. Provost Hurtig summed it up by saying “But ultimately, and I can’t say this enough to both the faculty and staff, We have a budget that has to be balanced and it requires that you can’t think yourself out of this without a cut.”