Slippery Rock University juniors Jena Reinheimer, Andrea Malacaman and Jessica Lascher walk through the Robert M. Smith Student Center recently. SRU's total enrollment this fall is 8,876 with 1,461 of those being graduate students.

Slippery Rock University officials have found favorable circumstances cutting into a COVID-19-caused deficit heading into fiscal year 2020-21, including record-setting enrollment in graduate programs.

The SRU Council of Trustees on Thursday approved a $179.1 million budget for 2020-21 with a deficit of $3.8 million.

Trustee Bill McCarrier, chairman of the finance committee, said he was pleased with the work by the administration, faculty and others involved with reducing the deficit.

“We have brought that deficit way down,” McCarrier said. “Slippery Rock (University,) we can be proud, is in very good condition financially.”

In May, university officials estimated a potential deficit of $4.4 million entering 2020-21, and the trustees approved to withdraw its tuition increase request from the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, which had issued a tuition freeze about a month before.

Also in May, the university informed the public of an estimated loss of about $7 million to the college and its affiliates, entities such as housing, meals and other services.

The university finalized fiscal year 2019-20 on June 30, and an annual audit was completed.

“In a nutshell, the results were strong,” said Molly Mercer, SRU's chief financial officer.

Mercer said the university enrollment remained steady through the spring and summer semesters, and the administration managed changing expenses well.

“We did see a slowdown in a lot of our normal expenses,” she said. “Those all help contribute to the bottom line.”

Expenses that came from having a large number of students on campus, such as energy use, decreased, and they gave way to new expenses from the COVID-19 crisis, such as purchasing personal protective equipment.

The latter was able to be at least partially paid for through COVID-19 aid relief, which also benefitted both last year's and this year's budgets.

Mercer said one of the biggest factors in the 2020-21 budget was the latest enrollment figures, which were presented Monday by Amanda Yale, chief enrollment management officer.“We know (COVID-19) is a challenging environment for all students,” Yale said. “We're very pleased where we ended up, having a nice increase in the graduate and a flat rate in the undergraduate.”SRU's total enrollment this fall is 8,876 with 1,461 of those being graduate students.“That is a record for our graduate enrollment (at one time),” Yale said.Yale attributed the increase largely to new programs. The university has added 25 new programs in the past seven years, 16 of which are at the graduate level.The university also saw an increase in out-of-state students, international students and minority students. The largest decrease in enrollment came from 1,460 incoming freshmen, which was 119 fewer than last year.Yale said the university had higher numbers ahead of the year, but some freshmen unenrolled as the COVID-19 pandemic continued into the fall semester.“They are sticking closer to home, those not coming,” Yale said. “The good news of that is 3/4 of those students have already communicated that they're still going to come to Slippery Rock.”Yale said she expects many of the students who did not attend this fall to come next fall, when the pandemic may be less of an issue.Yale said retention and incoming transfers kept the undergraduate credit hours largely stable, a decrease of only about .11%.“That speaks to our students are being retained. They are persisting from freshmen year to their sophomore year,” she said. “With student retention being very good, and graduate level increasing, it helped to keep our enrollment steady this year.”

Mercer said in addition to strong enrollment, the university also made strides in personnel management to help bridge the gap to a likely better environment next year.“We're doing a lot of reallocation of employees through this year,” Mercer said. “We've shifted a lot of people into different roles, which has allowed us to not fill those positions but get that important work done.”She said fewer expenses involved in having fewer people on campus are also a factor this year, which helped reduce the budget.Mercer said the largest addition to the budget came in its auxiliary costs, such as dining and recreation, where reduced usage and fees affected the revenue.In July, university officials said they would try to keep the number of on-campus residents to around 1,600, a decrease from 2,800 students in a normal year. In August, the council of trustees approved 50% reductions to some service fees at the Smith Student Center and the Aebersold Recreation Center.Mercer said the university has stood by that decision, despite the cost.“We kind of took a step back and took a look at the big picture to balance everyone's health and safety and their education,” she said.Mercer said the university will continue to control whatever is possible in expenses and use reserves to fill the void in the deficit for this year. She said from an overall perspective, SRU is doing as well as possible, all things considered.“We have a long history of strong financial growth,” Mercer said. “We are pleased with the progress we've made. It's our goal to keep looking for opportunity.”