Proposed Budget Reduction Plan

Corbett
Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:20:24 +0000

How does Smith plan to cut $30 million from the budget, given the huge uproar over Amherst painfully cutting $18 million?

$30M vs $18M sounds like a big difference, but it’s roughly proportional to the difference in school sizes. In the latest Common Data Sets, Smith reported total full-time enrollment of 3,014 (including grad students), plus another 87 part-time students. Amherst reported total full-time enrollment of only 1,697.

Amherst, just like Smith, plans an increase in student-faculty ratio; it’s just getting there in a different way. Smith is reducing faculty while keeping enrollment constant (which makes sense for a relatively large-enrollment LAC). Amherst is keeping faculty constant while increasing enrollment (which makes sense for a relatively small-enrollment LAC). But the student-faculty ratio is negatively affected either way.