BGSU Chief Financial Officer and Vice President for Finance Administration Sheri Stoll spoke to the Undergraduate Student Government about BGSU’s financial struggles throughout the pandemic.
After calculating the losses due to COVID-19 and other factors, Stoll said BGSU has lost $95 million in excess, with only some of that money being recovered by the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund. This number will continue to grow if COVID-19 or the Omicron variant were to worsen once again.
“If things ramp back up … that loss figure could potentially go up. We have received institutional aid but it isn’t going to be anywhere near the cost of the losses we’ve concurred and continue to experience,” Stoll said.
BGSU was quick to fill their losses by supplying new programs to the student body. Stoll made it clear that the university was also looking to raise prices on room and board, increase tuition for students starting 2023 — referred to as the 2023 cohorts — and possibly increase the graduate students’ tuition as well.
“All of these will be applicable to the incoming cohort group. So, if you are a current student, these increases do not impact you. We are also contemplating a pretty significant increase in our graduate tuition. This is not final yet,” Stoll said.
In the fall semester of 2019, BGSU welcomed over 3,300 students within their incoming freshmen cohort, however, Stoll said due to the significant impacts to the Fiscal Year 2021 budgets, there has been a 7.5% decrease in enrollment numbers this year.
Stoll mentioned that “the impact that those decreases would have on our FY 2021 budget, so that is the Fiscal Year that would start July 1, 2020, and go through June 30, 2021, was a little bit over 26 million dollars. For the Bowling Green Campus, that represents just under a 10 percent cut in our budget in a single Fiscal Year.”
In preparation for the 10% budget cut and lack of government support, BGSU created significant decreases in operating expenses and staffing, temporarily closed down dormitories and issued $12.5 million in refunds to students.
“There were massive layoffs and, in the state of Ohio, our unemployment ratings in April and May just shot up to over 10 percent. That had not happened since back in the Great Recession in ‘08 and ‘09,” said Stoll. “To see that kind of unemployment rate within about a 30 day period was pretty much unheard of in the state of Ohio.”
As COVID-19 started, the financial department had to readjust and refocus on how to best serve the students of Bowling Green. The past 24 months have been some of the most “challenging for students, faculty, staff and families.”
“It has impacted individuals, families, communities, circling our country and the globe. We, I think, tried very hard as an institution. We are here to serve the students, to try to make sure that your ability to progress in your academic programs continues, to try to create as much of a normal environment (as possible),” said Stoll.
During the summer of 2020, BGSU started preparing for the re-opening of the campus for the fall semester. Stoll explained how BSGU created plans for testing and vaccination sites on campus.
“There were all sorts of things that we were considering, ultimately, we ended up serving as a test site and a vaccination site and I would consider some of those things to be a contribution to the effort that I look back on and think ‘way to go BG,’” said Stoll.
Despite the decreasing enrollment of 18 year olds, BGSU is seeing a promising number of students in the class of 2026 through housing deposits, applications, visits to campus and confirmations for students who will be coming to campus in the fall semester of 2022.
Because of this rise in enrollment, the financial department is looking for the budget to be flat.
“We are planning for our freshmen class budget-wise to be about flat. I am hoping as we get closer to April, May, June, we will get a better sense and maybe even see a slight uptake but it’s easier and better this far out to plan for the worst and then see something better than the other way around,” said Stoll.
