In a meeting on December 12th, as students finished their finals and packed up to leave campus for winter break, President James Birge informed the college’s board of trustees that MCLA is facing a loss in state funding for next year.
The reduction is the result of a change in the formula, used by the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education (DEH), to calculate the allocation of state funds to public colleges and universities.
“We will see about $140,000 less in revenue from that,” said President Birge, during the meeting. “We’re trying to advocate with the state not to implement the change … It’s a difficult argument to make for us, but we are still trying to make it.”
According to President Birge, the DEH has returned to using 2017 as the benchmark: a move that benefits larger state institutions, while harming MCLA. He claims the DEH formula disregards MCLA’s rate of Pell-eligible students, which is greater than the other nine state universities, and instead focuses on the total number of Pell-eligible students within an institution.
In the ’23-’24 academic year, MCLA had 784 enrolled undergraduate students. 341 of those students qualified for a federal Pell grant, according to the college’s ’24-’25 factbook, released by MCLA’s Office of Institutional Research. This nearly 47% eligibility rate puts MCLA ahead of other state institutions; about a third of students in the UMASS system qualify, according to university President Marty Meehan, while 40% of students at Salem State University are eligible, according to its president John Keenan.
Despite MCLA’s impressive rate, the formula change does not account for total enrollment in its calculation, instead looking solely at the total number of students at an institution who qualify. With less than a thousand students, MCLA simply can’t compete with schools like UMASS or Salem State, who boast 54,000 and 6,300 students respectively.
“Because we have a smaller number, even though we have a higher percentage of Pell students, that’s where we were hurt,” President Birge said.
MCLA relies heavily on state funding to keep lights on and classes meeting. The college’s tuition fees are determined by the state, not the school, under MA General Laws, Part I, Title II, Chapter 15A, Section 9. Without the option to raise tuition to generate additional revenue, state funding must close the gap.
In fiscal year 23, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, 51% of MCLA’s core revenue (that is, the total amount of money the college earns) came from state appropriations, while only 9% came from tuition and fees.
The change in the DEH’s formula – and resulting drop in state funding – may have come as a surprise to President Birge and MCLA’s administration. He spoke confidently of the state funding MCLA receives in an interview with The Berkshire Eagle in January of 2024.
“We’re in a unique environment because we’re a public institution, we receive state support, so our largest stream of revenue is from the state,” said President Birge. “There’s no indication the state is pulling back. This year the state has provided significant increases for public education.”
The college’s administration has been working to stabilize MCLA, fighting against what The Berkshire Eagle calls “long-lingering systemic struggles for state colleges, the shock of COVID-19 and regional demographic depression.” This reduction in state funding is yet another hit to the college, as it grapples with low enrollment numbers.
In 2021, MCLA’s undergrad enrollment fell below 1,000 students for the first time in 20 years. The loss prompted the college to close one of the residence halls, reduce the course schedule, lose part-time faculty members, and embark on an ambitious plan to combat the falling numbers.
While their work to reverse declining enrollment numbers has had some success, the “FAFSA debacle” that affected colleges and universities across the nation last year put MCLA’s enrollment in a backslide, President Birge said in a September 2024 interview with Berkshire Eagle reporter Sten Spinella.
“This fall we’d be talking differently if FAFSA hadn’t been such a challenge for all institutions,” he said. “We’d be partying right now.”
Now, with the fall semester finished, MCLA is predicting a $320,000 deficit for fiscal year 2025. College officials say they are confident the gap can be closed, pointing to a predicted upswing in revenue for the spring, some grants, and, according to President Birge, state SUCCESS Act funding which could bring in some $685,000.
President Birge told the board of trustees during their December 12th meeting that those funds were expected to release in January and should be used by September, with staff already working on where they can be used to greatest effect.
“Not all of that will be budget relief. Some of it comes with new expenses … but we will see some budget relief from that,” President Birge said of the SUCCESS Act funding. “I think that’s going to chip away at that projected deficit.”
With the student body already feeling the effects of the college’s tight budget, the loss of state funding, set off by the DEH’s formula change, is a blow to the MCLA community.
