Lewis & Clark’s College of Arts & Sciences is projecting an operating deficit of $7.4 million for the fiscal year ending May 31, 2027, and Dean Jerusha Detweiler-Bedell said the way forward is to shrink its budget to match a smaller student body while keeping faculty and student interests at the center of decisions.
The college’s overall institutional deficit is projected to be $5.1 million, after accounting for Graduate and Law campuses’ budget surplus.
In an interview with The Mossy Log, Detweiler-Bedell laid out the factors driving the deficit, why enrollment fell short this fall and why shifting administrative salaries would not close the gap.
Detweiler-Bedell began by emphasizing that LC is an institution driven by tuition. The problem, she explained, is that while the sticker price of tuition continues to rise, students usually pay less after aid. Despite the rising tuition, the average amount each student pays has been declining when adjusted for inflation.
Andrea Dooley, chief financial officer and vice president of operations, shared her remarks on the situation in a written statement to The Mossy Log.
“Over the past 10 years, the average institutional merit and financial aid package provided to entering CAS students has increased at more than double the rate of the sticker price of tuition and fees. This growth in financial aid has resulted in a 16% decline in the average price that a student pays to study, considered in relation to inflation which has increased by about 38% in that timeframe,” Dooley wrote.
“When you have the amount of money on average each student’s paying going down over time, it then continues to build up the deficit,” Detweiler-Bedell said.
Inflation and the rising cost of delivering a college education mean expenses keep growing while that average amount students pay declines. But LC is not alone in facing these pressures.
“We are absolutely in the norm, insofar as schools like ours,” Detweiler-Bedell said. She pointed to the so-called demographic cliff: a decline in college-aged students tied to lower birth rates following the Great Recession. She also cited shifting public perception of the value of higher education and a growing preference among high school students for larger universities over smaller liberal arts colleges.
The college’s budget assumed an incoming class of about 520, but 413 enrolled, Detweiler-Bedell said. She also said this decline continues a downward enrollment trend.
Some of these challenges, Detweiler-Bedell said, reflect broader national patterns that have been building up for years.
Detweiler-Bedell said LC was cushioned for several years after the COVID-19 pandemic because it was seen as resilient when enrollment rebounded. Now, she said, the college is seeing something closer to a correction, while its peers are ahead in discounting tuition.
In the face of these downward enrollment trends, the college is recalibrating its plans. Looking ahead, Detweiler-Bedell said the student body is projected to be about 20% smaller.
“And logically, as painful as it is, we need to then somewhat shrink the faculty,” she said. “We want to do that methodically, systematically using data and student interests.”
Beyond changing the curriculum, Detweiler-Bedell said the college has offered tenure-track faculty a voluntary reduction program. Todd Lochner, chair of the Budget Advisory Committee, described the process as a “voluntary furlough approach.”
Most tenure-track faculty teach three classes one semester and two the next, a schedule known as 3/2, Lochner said in an interview with The Mossy Log. Faculty members have always been able to negotiate with the dean to move to a 2/2 schedule, which comes with a 20% salary reduction, to 80% of their pay.
What has changed, is a one-time offer for faculty to voluntarily take a furlough down to a 2/2 schedule and receive “a little more” than 80% of their salary.
Detweiler-Bedell went into more detail about other proposals she has offered, which have been guided by one question: would a given change undermine the liberal arts experience? She said the proposals were informed by data from the past three years, which she describes as the period after the post-COVID-19 bump faded. The data included the most popular majors and minors among current students, the area of study that students expressed interest in, and how effectively and accurately the college converts that demonstrated interest into enrollment.
The first proposals from the dean’s office looked at the 10 departments with the fewest majors, while also considering student interest.
“It’s always the student who has been driving any of these calculations,” Detweiler-Bedell said.
Faculty chairs’ concerns about administrative spending are covered in a companion story above.
Although Detweiler-Bedell said she understands this proposal, she noted that she could only speak to the academic side of the budget, since administrative offices across campus are outside her purview. However, she argued that reducing administrative salaries would not be sufficient in countering these financial challenges.
“The reality is that our challenges are much greater than any sort of redistribution of salary dollars in that way,” she said.
Detweiler-Bedell also said some of the data circulated in faculty settings, including figures suggesting administrative growth, do not tell the full story. She said part of the apparent growth is reflective of existing employees being reclassified, and that the data may include the law and graduate schools, which are separate from the undergraduate college. Additionally, she cited a recent change to how higher education institutions classify faculty members as “administrators,” which contributes to the appearance of what critics called “administrative bloat.”
Dooley commented on the challenges of approaching this data without context.
“While the reclassification may make it appear that there was an increase in management and a decline in other categories, this reclassification was done solely for reporting purposes and had no impact on the type of services those employees are providing to students or how resources are being spent. Examples of the type of employees who were reclassified include staff who work in the library, writing center and for overseas programs,” Dooley’s comment read.
The college has published an FAQ addressing these points and other questions about the budget deficit.
In conjunction with proposed reductions, Detweiler-Bedell said the college is pursuing new revenue sources. She said the college plans to hire a fundraiser dedicated to the academic side of campus and has formed an Academic Outreach and Innovation Committee composed of elected faculty members to tell the story of student and faculty work. She pointed to the Festival of Scholars and Arts as an example of work the college could showcase to prospective students and families and use to seek grants and donations.
Faculty members are also working on a potential new undergraduate General Education program. She said it would align with President Robin Homes-Sullivan’s “L&C Promise,” which commits to providing every student across the three schools with a high-impact learning experience, such as collaborative research, artistic work or paid internships.
“It’s not just about cutting,” Detweiler-Bedell said. “It is absolutely investing in the student’s experience, because our goal is to give us more flexibility to still be able to meet budget targets while also enhancing the stuff that we know will be best based on your own interests, like the student’s own excitement and enthusiasm.”
When asked why the college does not draw more from its endowment, Detweiler-Bedell compared the endowment to a retirement fund that should keep growing. Withdrawing the balance of the college’s endowment too quickly, she said, would leave the college less able to serve students and less likely to survive. She added that decisions about endowment withdrawals rest with the Board of Trustees, not the dean’s office or the president’s.
According to Detweiler-Bedell, the college is financially healthy but cannot remain unchanged.
“If we do nothing, we don’t change anything, and we will then start a downward spiral,” she said. She described the proposed changes as painful but driven by data and student interest, arguing that they are necessary for the college to thrive. She recognized how hard the changes are for people on campus, both faculty and students alike. When asked what success looks like a year from now, Detweiler-Bedell said it will not be the end of the story.
“Success for me looks like continuing to center the student experience in our mission, compassion for ourselves as a community and knowing that changes in staffing that may very well be inevitable are also really difficult,” she said.
She said she hopes the community recognizes that the pressures reflect broader national trends.
“This is every small college across the country,” she said, adding that schools without endowments are closing. “The goal of Lewis & Clark is to stay forever.”
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