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Church Hindes, chair of the Vermont State Colleges System board of trustees, center, speaks as members of the VSCS board and Chancellor Jeb Spaulding, left, hold a public meeting on the campus of Northern Vermont University-Lyndon on Sept. 12, 2019. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger

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The already fragile finances of many of the state’s colleges are being pummeled by the coronavirus pandemic.



Higher education institutions in Vermont were already facing an enrollment crunch that saw four colleges announce closures or mergers last year. The pandemic has since required schools return millions of dollars in room and board fees to students, incur new costs to pivot to online learning, and made it nearly impossible for schools to predict what the fall might bring in terms of enrollment.



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“The challenges aren’t new,” Jeb Spaulding, chancellor of the Vermont State Colleges, told trustees on Saturday. “But the intensity of the challenges are immense.”



Moody’s Investors Service in March downgraded its outlook for the entire U.S. higher education sector from stable to negative. Education Dive reported the credit agency says schools face “unprecedented enrollment uncertainty” next year, since many high school grads might choose to opt for a gap year or forgo higher education entirely in the face of such economic turmoil. International students, a key source of tuition revenue for many schools, could also wind up staying in their home countries because of travel bans.



“As far as projecting through the fall, again it’s just totally unpredictable. Most institutions are planning on at least a 10% reduction in enrollment. Some perhaps up to 30%,” Susan Stitely, the president of the Association of Vermont Independent Colleges, told the Senate Education committee on Tuesday. The association includes all 11 of Vermont’s private higher education institutions, including Bennington, Norwich, Middlebury, Champlain and Saint Michael’s.



Suresh Garimella, the president of the University of Vermont, echoed Stitely.



Suresh Garimella, president of the University of Vermont, on his first day on the job July 1, 2019. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger

“The biggest challenge, in my mind, is that things are uncertain. We cannot quite put a number on it, if we could, it would be easier to plan,” he told lawmakers.



The federal government’s coronavirus stimulus package will send a little over $21 million, in total, to public and private Vermont colleges. But half of that money must go directly to students in the form of emergency financial aid, and cannot help schools replace lost revenues. And it is dwarfed by the losses schools are reporting in the short-term alone.



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UVM has had to refund $10 million in room and board fees to students after the school pivoted to online learning in March. Garimella also said he anticipated a “tsunami of financial aid requests” that would probably total at least an extra $8 million. The public land grant university is set to receive about $7 million from the federal stimulus package, half of which will go directly to student financial aid.



Spaulding said that between refunded room and board fees, added sick leave costs, and canceled events, the system was taking a roughly $11 million hit this fiscal year. The VSCS is expecting to receive about $6 million in federal coronavirus aid, including direct payments to students.



The Vermont State Colleges System includes Castleton University, Northern Vermont University, with campuses in Lyndon and Johnson, Vermont Technical College and Community College of Vermont.



System leaders are trying to plan for at least a 10% decline in enrollment and “looking at all our options,” according to Spaulding. That will almost certainly include reductions in personnel. The chancellor’s office has already cut four positions.



Spaulding on Saturday also said shuttering a campus was “one of the options” system leaders were considering, but he emphasized doing so would be a last resort.



“We’re not predicting that’s going to happen, but we can’t rule that out,” he said. Trustees could make a decision as soon as Monday, when they are set to meet via Zoom to consider Spaulding’s recommendations.



AFT-Vermont, the union that represents faculty and staff at the state colleges and the University of Vermont, has responded to the crisis’ financial impact by calling on the state to make a $50 million investment in public higher education.



“Governor Scott and state legislators: if we do not act now to support public higher education we might not survive this,” the union said in a statement Wednesday.



The Middlebury College campus in Vermont’s Addison County. Middlebury College photo

Even the state’s wealthiest schools won’t be spared completely from the disease’s financial fallout. At Middlebury College, which boasts a $1 billion endowment, officials are halting all discretionary spending and postponing purchasing until next fiscal year.



In a public message to Middlebury employees, David Provost, the college’s executive vice president for finance and administration, said that all benefits-eligible workers would continue to be paid through June 30. Beyond that, the school couldn’t make any promises, Provost said, although he emphasized the school was trying to avoid furloughs, layoffs, or reducing wages. The school is projecting a net loss of about $9 million in revenues because of the crisis.



“We wish we were in a position to guarantee wages indefinitely. However, the economic challenges and shifting circumstances are considerable,” he wrote.



School officials also say deposits for next year are on pace, but uncertainty about how many students will actually enroll in the fall appears to have prompted Middlebury to significantly increase its admission offers, according to the student paper. The Middlebury Campus reported earlier this month that the school’s acceptance rate had jumped to 24% in the wake of the crisis, up from 16% the year prior.



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