Business school students at California State University, Fullerton, are getting a real world lesson in budgets and economics.
California’s budget woes have pushed the university to cut back on classes, with 100 fewer courses offered next school year. Cal State Fullerton also has limited the number of incoming students as it faces an estimated $25 million budget cut.
Fewer classes leave some students scrambling to find ways to fulfill their graduation requirements.
Anil Puri, dean of the Mihaylo College of Business and Economics at California State Fullerton, said he gets e-mails every day from students trying to get into certain classes in order to graduate as planned.
“Unfortunately, many will have to put it off,” Puri said.
The business school has a total of 8,500 students, about 400 of whom are in its graduate school going for master’s degrees. The school will offer 600 total classes next year.
The business school tried to drop basic level classes that students would have a chance of picking up at community colleges and then transferring the credits in.
But with community colleges facing the same budget pressures, there aren’t as many classes available there either.
The smaller budget comes from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed $2.75 billion cut for higher education, which also will affect community colleges and the University of California system.
Last month the governor’s proposed budget measures to fix the state’s deficit were rejected in a special election, which caused him to make a number of cuts to various departments across the state.
The funding drop comes at a time when Puri and his staff have been working to expand Cal State Fullerton’s business school.
Last year it opened its $85 million Steven G. Mihaylo Hall, home to the university’s business school.
An honors program being introduced next year has been cut down to one class instead of two.
“We already accepted students into it,” Puri said.
Plans to expand its master’s in business program also will go on hold.
Students aren’t the only ones getting the short end of the stick.
With the cuts, Cal State Fullerton won’t rehire part-time lecturers, some of whom have worked with the university for more than five years.
So far, no fulltime faculty positions have been lost in the business school, Puri said.
“Ninety percent of our budget is in people,” he said.
Puri, who joined the school as a faculty member in 1977, says he’s never seen a budget crunch like the one he’s dealing with now.
In all, there have been three budget cuts in the California State University system during the past year.
“The students are the ones who will suffer the most,” Puri said.
About 1,200 fewer students will be attending the university next year. Its summer school program also has been reduced by 4,000, school officials said.
The school counts its total student body at about 36,000, including undergraduates and graduates. That’s at the top of the Cal State schools.
Meanwhile, applications at the university were at a record 50,000 last year, despite making an earlier cutoff for accepting them.
“Normally we see a lot of people wanting to come to school after being laid off,” said Ephraim Smith, vice president of academic affairs.
About 3,000 first-time freshman that were refused admission for next year would have been accepted last year, according to Smith.
The same probably goes for about 2,000 transfer students, he said.
A third of the school’s students are from OC. Preference for admission is given to students who live in Orange and Los Angeles counties and the Inland Empire.
It could take a couple of years before the school gets back on track to grow again, Puri said.
“It’s not like a switch you turn on and off,” he said. “Once class sizes become smaller it’s harder to turn around.”
The school is doing a number of other things to make up for the smaller budget.
It is targeting federal stimulus money, which is expected to total $537 million for the state.
Fullerton also has cut back on maintenance, traveling and equipment purchases, according to Willie Hagan, the school’s chief financial officer and vice president of administration and finance.
The California State University system also has raised its fees by 10% across its 23 schools, with students paying $300 more for a total of $3,300 a year on top of tuition.
The state funds about $7,200 for each student, Hagan said.
The lion’s share of CSUF’s $400 million budget comes from the state ($200 million) and student fees ($100 million), which comes as a payment from the state.
