West Virginia University’s student population has been shrinking for years. Its proclivity to spend money has not.
Now facing a $45 million budget deficit, administrators have proposed eliminating dozens of programs, including the mathematics Ph.D. and the entire world languages department. Students staged a spirited protest on campus last week, and faculty are pleading with the school’s governing board to reject the recommended cuts.
West Virginia reflects a broader pattern of flagship schools increasing expenditures far faster than they did enrollment, as detailed in a recent Wall Street Journal investigation. The proposed cuts have caused concern over the direction of education in the state, among the nation’s poorest, and the school’s role as a steppingstone for local students into the global economy.
University President E. Gordon Gee and current and former members of the board blame the institution’s financial challenges on the pandemic and state funding cuts, as well as competition and demographic changes.
A review of university financial records, however, shows that its spending habits and expansion plans set it on a path to instability.
Gee said in 2014 that the university, which at the time enrolled about 33,000 full- and part-time students across its three campuses and online, should grow to 40,000. That would require new investments.