Dive Brief:
- Facing a potential “existential threat” from budget deficits and enrollment declines, Columbia College Chicago is moving to revamp curriculum, restructure its academic schools and take other action to address financial pressures.
- Immediate changes to the curriculum, including reductions to core education requirements, will result in around a dozen faculty job losses. Changes to the nonprofit college’s academic structures would reduce dean, associate dean and department chair positions by 50%.
- Further, Columbia is reviewing 28 academic “programs of concern,” and resulting cuts could lead to additional faculty layoffs. Columbia’s board on Monday approved the changes, which were recommended earlier in May in a report from the institution’s president.
Dive Insight:
Tasked with assessing the college’s financial situation, Columbia President Kwang-Wu Kim, who is set to step down in July, found that the state of its finances met the threshold for an “adverse circumstance” under its policy guidelines, which allows for the termination of tenured faculty members.
“A failure to address this Adverse Circumstance swiftly and comprehensively could become an existential threat if the college does not act now,” Kim said in the report.
The president cited falling enrollment, which is down 36% since 2013, with a student headcount of 6,529 in fall 2023. He also pointed to dwindling reserves and projected deficits of over $30 million annually in the years ahead if it takes no action on its budget. Fiscal 2024 has a projected $37.9 deficit.
Recent annual deficits were by design, as the college invested in new faculty, student recruitment, marketing and financial aid to try to boost enrollment.
“While the deficit spending plan eventually stanched the sharper, steeper enrollment and net revenue declines of the 2008-2018 period, it did not reverse them,” Kim said.
Along with long-term enrollment declines, Kim also noted “reputational damage” after a bruising, prolonged faculty strike disrupted Columbia’s fall 2023 semester.
Under Kim’s plan, the approved changes will reduce Columbia’s core curriculum from 42 credits to 30.
These changes, set to begin in the fall semester, are meant to let students choose “more classes in their major, complete a minor, enroll in classes that strengthen their business skills, and broaden their creative abilities by taking additional courses in other disciplines,” Kim said in the report.
In addition, the college plans to continue reviewing its academic portfolio after flagging concerns with 28 programs over enrollment, retention, graduation or other issues. Those include degrees in dance, music, sign language, cinema and television, business and entrepreneurship, theater and photography.
Columbia has hired outside consultants to finalize its program analysis and plans to implement changes by fall 2025. While Kim didn’t detail the extent of the potential faculty cuts, he said that Columbia is “working to anticipate and plan for faculty separations.”
Kim also proposed a restructuring of Columbia’s various academic schools that will replace them with eight “creative entities” with new, streamlined leadership structures. He also proposed creating two new administrative roles — deans of academic programming and faculty affairs — that would report to the provost.
Further, the president’s plan calls for raising teaching workloads for tenured faculty from six to seven courses, among other efforts to shore up the college’s finances.
In the near term, the plan is expected to save $18 million from Columbia’s fiscal 2025 operating budget.