American colleges are eliminating majors and cutting programs after years of putting them off

But her education changed dramatically in May when administrators at the University of Minnesota announced a plan to eliminate its music department while cutting 42 degree programs and 50 minors.

It is part of a wave of program cuts In recent months, American colleges, large and small, have been trying to make ends meet. Among their budget challenges: federal COVID relief money is gone, operating costs are rising and there are fewer high school graduates. go straight to college.

The cuts mean more than just savings or even job losses. They often create Agitation for students who chose a campus because of certain degree programs and then wrote checks or took out student loans.

“For me, it’s been a very anxiety-inducing experience,” said Westman, 23, as she began the process that ultimately led her to transfer to Augsburg University in Minneapolis. “It’s just the fear of the unknown.”

At St. Cloud State, most students will be able to finish their degrees before the cuts take effect, but Westman’s music therapy degree was new and hadn’t officially started. She has spent the past three months in a desperate race to find work in a new city and sublet her apartment in St. Cloud after already signing a lease. She was moving into her new apartment on Friday.

For years, many universities put off making cuts, said Larry Lee, who was interim president of St. Cloud State but resigned last month to lead Blackburn College in Illinois.

University enrollment decreased during the pandemic, but officials had hoped numbers would rebound to pre-COVID levels and had used federal relief money to shore up their budgets in the meantime, he said.

“They were just hanging in there, hanging in there,” Lee said, noting that universities must now confront their new reality.

Higher education regained some ground last fall and in the spring semester, largely due to community college enrollment. began to recoverAccording to data from the National Student Information Clearinghouse Research Center.

But the trend for four-year colleges remains troubling. Even without growing concerns about the cost of college and the long-term burden of student debt, the pool of young adults is shrinking.

Birth rates fell During the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009, they never recovered. Now, those smaller classes are preparing to graduate and start college.

“It’s a very difficult math problem to overcome,” said Patrick Lane, vice president of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, a leading authority on student demographics.

To complicate the situation, the chaotic reform of the federal government financial aid applicationMillions of students began summer break wondering where they would go to college this fall and how they would pay for their studies. While there are still plenty of jobs, Not as much as last yearSome experts fear that students I won’t bother signing up at all.

“This year, going into next fall, things are going to be bad,” said Katharine Meyer, a senior fellow in the Governance Studies program at the Brown Center for Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit. “I think a lot of colleges are really worried about not being able to meet their enrollment goals.”

Many universities like St. Cloud State had already begun to spend down their budget reserves. The university’s enrollment rose to about 18,300 students in the fall of 2010, before falling steadily to about 10,000 students in the fall of 2023.

Lee said St. Cloud State’s student population has stabilized, but spending was too high for the small number of students. The university’s budget deficit has ballooned to $32 million over the past two years, forcing sweeping cuts.

Some universities have taken more extreme measures, closing its doors. That happened at the camp of 1,000 students. Birmingham-Southern College In Alabama, the 900 students Fontbonne University in Missouri, the 350-student Wells College in New York, and the 220-student Goddard College in Vermont.

However, cuts seem to be more common. Two of North Carolina Public Universities Last month it received the green light to eliminate more than a dozen degree programs ranging from ancient Mediterranean studies to physics.

Arkansas State University announced last fall that it would phase out nine programs. Three of the 64 colleges in the State University of New York system have cut programs amid low enrollment and budget problems.

Other schools that are cutting and phasing out programs include West Virginia UniversityDrake University in Iowa, the University of Nebraska campus at Kearney, North Dakota State University, and across the state, Dickinson State University.

Experts say this is just the beginning. Even schools that aren’t making immediate cuts are reviewing their degree offerings. At Pennsylvania State University, officials are looking for duplicative and under-enrolled academic programs as student numbers shrink at its branch campuses.

Students who are particularly affected are those in smaller programs and those in humanitiesthat now graduate a smaller proportion of students than 15 years ago.

“It’s a humanitarian disaster for all the faculty and staff involved, not to mention the students who want to pursue this,” said Bryan Alexander, a Georgetown University scholar who has written about higher education. “It’s an open question how far universities can cut their way toward sustainability.”

For Terry Vermillion, who just retired after 34 years as a music teacher at St. Cloud State, the cuts are hard to see. The country’s music programs suffered a blow during the pandemiche said, with Zoom Band nothing short of “disastrous” for many public school programs.

“We weren’t able to teach music online effectively, so there’s a gap,” she said. “And, you know, we’re just starting to get out of that gap and get back on our feet a little bit. And then the cuts come.”

For St. Cloud State music students like Lilly Rhodes, the biggest fear is what will happen when the program is phased out. No new students will be admitted to the department and its professors will be looking for new jobs.

“When the entire music department is shut down, it’s terribly difficult to keep ensembles alive,” he said. “There are no musicians coming in, so when our seniors graduate, they move on, and our ensembles get smaller and smaller.

“It’s a little difficult to move on if that’s the case,” he said.