Administrators Give Budget and Enrollment Updates

By Dave Maley, May 22, 2025
Balancing budget will require both expense reductions and revenue enhancements.

At the May 20 State of the College gathering, President La Jerne Terry Cornish and other administrators provided the campus community with an update on the college’s budget and on the status of fall enrollment.

Cornish opened the meeting by thanking everyone for working together to conclude an incredibly successful academic year, and for helping to create an unforgettable Commencement ceremony for the students in the Class of 2025.

As previously announced, the Ithaca College Board of Trustees had charged Cornish with eliminating the college’s annual budget deficit by Fiscal Year 2028. She reported that at its May meeting, the board approved the FY 2026 budget and was provided with high-level budget projections for FY 27 and FY 28.

Cornish noted that the specific steps to reduce spending, including any elimination of positions, would not be announced at this meeting but rather will be shared directly at the appropriate time by division heads and supervisors, as this is a rolling process over the course of the coming weeks and months.

Rock Hall, vice president for enrollment management and student success, said that the college is on pace to hit its fall enrollment target, upon which budget assumptions are based.

Man stands at lectern with slide projected behind him.

Tim Downs, vice president for finance and administration and chief financial officer, provides a budget update.

“We surpassed our application goals, landing just south of 13,000,” said Hall. “Our admit rate is solid. But more importantly, if you look at our net deposits compared to last year, we’re roughly 11% ahead and that’s a healthy tale of the tape. We’re still communicating with non-deposits and we’re shoring up our current deposits, and we’re staying omnidirectional with the partnership of [the Marketing Communications team] with admitted students, parents, and families as we cast the net out for next year.”

Tim Downs, vice president for finance and administration and chief financial officer, said that a balanced approach was taken in considering how to balance this year’s budget, with the result being that about $11 million in expense reductions were made. Over half of the deficit elimination, however, will come through revenue enhancements.

“We’ve talked about how we can’t cut our way to success,” said Downs. “So part of our goal was to balance our initiatives with both the revenue and the expenses, not pushing too hard on one or the other.”

Downs said that reaching a target enrollment of around 1,200 new undergraduate students each year and reducing the discount rate will be the main drivers on the revenue side of the ledger, since doing only one without the other won’t increase net tuition revenue.

“The work we do every day to show the product of what Ithaca College has, that’s what’s going to help us grow our revenue to the size where we need to be,” said Downs. “That’s what’s really helping prevent having to take more austere measures. We’re all going to have to work hard to get there, but that’s what’s going to allow us to create a balanced budget again.”

Cornish concluded the meeting by noting that budget deliberations and decisions will continue to take into account the impact on services to students, keeping them at the center of everything that the college does.

“We’re taking a measured approach to this work, because we believe it is the right thing to do,” she said. “In the meantime, we continue to attract, educate, and graduate incredible students. Our future is bright. I know it. And it’s going to take all of us working together rowing in the same boat, in the same direction, to get to the place I know with everything in me, that we can go if we choose to go together.”