Dive Brief:
- The University of Southern Mississippi's academic structure may undergo drastic shifts, according to a draft of a reorganization proposal attained by the Hattiesburg American that suggests the number of colleges on the campus could be reduced from six to four.
- The draft plan intends to address issues of state funding decreases by reducing administrative overhead, according to Provost Steven Moser, and it would eliminate the College of Health entirely and combine two other schools into one, while similar classes in separate disciplines would be eliminated and the number of deans would be reduced.
- The university intends to finalize the draft reorganization plan in the coming week to send it to the Institute of Higher Learning, which will likely consider the plan in the fall, and Moser said he doesn't expect that any staff will be laid off due to the reorganization.
Dive Insight:
Colleges and universities are increasingly considered mergers and consolidation to reduce administrative and maintenance costs in response to less government support, lower enrollment and decreased tuition revenue throughout the country. However, some consolidation measures can falter if it becomes apparent that the measure would not necessarily lower costs for the merged facilities. Administrators can walk a difficult line in saying that there will likely not be staff cuts due to a merger. That kind of assurance may bring the staff tentatively onboard such a measure, but a college administration could lose staff support quickly if that situation changes.
Colleges seeking to cut costs might prefer to start small, in lieu of the extensive efforts that entail closing one or multiple physical campuses. Earlier this year, the presses at Bucknell University and Rutgers University announced they would combine forces for mutually beneficial ends in an effort to cut costs at a point when college press services are receiving diminished funding. Such efforts in isolation will not manage to cover the budget cuts and tuition decreases suffered by many higher ed institutions, but multiple efforts on a minor scale requiring less risk could at least start to stanch the financial bleeding.