Kimberly Nelson | Co-Editor-in-Chief

Five years after the financial crisis hit the United States, the economy is still affecting private colleges across the nation, with Buena Vista University (BVU) being among them. The recent cuts to staff positions and salary freezes have caused alarm among the BVU community, but President Fred Moore says that the university is doing much better than most private colleges in Iowa.

“The university is financially strong,” Moore said. “Times are tight around the economy; times are tight at all private colleges, and we’ve had to economize, but we’ve taken the steps here to make sure that we remain strong, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Moore states that the budget cuts have come to affect staff and faculty more than students. Cuts that have been made over the past academic year have included cutting retirement contributions, freezing salaries, and holding open personnel positions. During the process of deciding where the cuts in budget were to be made, Moore said that the students’ welfare was always in mind.

“If we’re going to cut the budget and lessen the impact on students, there’s only one way to do that and that’s to go into personnel costs,” Moore said. “Regrettably, most of the hardship fell on faculty and staff, but as I said, we didn’t want that to happen where students were concerned.”

Students were not left completely unaffected during the budget cuts. The shuttle and RIDES taxi fare was an area that could not escape minor cuts within the Student Affairs Department. Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students Meg McKeon said that every department was expected to make cuts.

“All of us around the table, all the vice presidents, were making cuts where we could with the least amount of impact on operations and definitely the least amount of impact on students,” McKeon said.

After reviewing different programs and resources made available for students, McKeon noted that the shuttle and RIDES taxi had least amount of students using that service.

“When I was asked to come up with additional savings within my division, what I had to do was look at where am I using the resources that I have available to me,” McKeon said. “I was spending that money on the fewest number of students.”

McKeon said the cut to the RIDES taxi and shuttle affected approximately 35 students. While these services were free to students before, they now cost $2.50 for a one-way ride. For those in Storm Lake who use the RIDES taxi service, the cost would be $5.00. McKeon worked with RIDES to keep the rate for BVU students low.

The shuttle and RIDES taxi are the only services that are projected to impact students directly. Overall, Moore says that only four percent of the budget cuts will impact students. Both Moore and McKeon believe that if any further cuts need to be made, students will always be in mind.

“Sometimes when you have to budget things, you don’t get advanced warning. We thought we had it, but we had to make more cuts. There wasn’t a lot of time for room and discussion. Each VP had to make sacrifices within their area and we all did,” McKeon said.

Although BVU is financially stable, Moore predicts that for the next few years the university will have to tread carefully when using finances.

“Even though our endowment spending will be up a little bit, things look a little bit better in GPS (Graduate & Professional Studies), and we do have a nice lead for freshman, we’re being cautious,” Moore said.

Precautions are being taken due to the fluctuating enrollment. About 85 percent of the revenue created at BVU comes from enrollment. Part of the enrollment revenue comes from adult learners entering into GPS, which changes with the rising and falling of the nation’s financial market.

“It’s kind of counter intuitive, but when times are bad, schools with adult degrees enrollments do pretty well,” Moore said. “Will we ever reach the levels we had right after the crash? I don’t know the answer to that because they were exorbitantly high compared to anything we’ve ever done before.”

However difficult it is to predict how well the upcoming enrollment will be for Buena Vista University, Moore says that students should know and take comfort in the fact that they will make sure that quality education will always be available to students.

“We live in a world that is more uncertain than the one 15 years ago,” Moore said. “What I do want students to be confident in is that we’re going to be proactive, and we’re going to stay on top of this. We’re going to make sure that this place remains solid for students.”