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LIU Post Goes Over Budget

Freddie Schwartz     

At the March 6th Student Government meeting, the administration announced that the campus has exceeded its budget for this year.

“The campus has a budget of about $40 million, but the campus spent around $44 million,” stated LIU Post Provost Dr. Paul Forestell. Some students are concerned that this will lead to budget cuts or that it will negatively effect the campus.

Anketa Younge, a junior Science and Psychology major, said, “I’m worried that students will be affected financially and also the faculty members.”

Dr. Forestell explained that the budget is a non-digressional budget, meaning that the campus is required to pay certain expenses, including payroll, utilities and financial aid for students. The budget is decided upon by predicting the revenue and expenses the school will incur for the year.

One issue this year has been graduate enrollment, which is currently down around five percent. This adds up to a $3-4 million loss for campus income. Additionally, LIU Post had to hire more human resources personnel to cover legal work.

Dr. Forestell also said that increasing the student aid in scholarships, especially merit-based scholarships,  in order to raise the academic level of the school and bring in more students has added to campus expenses. According to Forestell, the amount of student aid has increased by 20 percent in the last five years.

While LIU Post faces budgetary issues, Forestell said that a new program will be introduced to the campus in Spring 2013. The Adult Completion program will allow people who never completed the required amount of credits to receive a degree. The program will be a blend of on-campus and online courses to aid those students who have families or full-time jobs.

Some students are still concerned with the budget issues and how it will affect them. “Hopefully, the school will figure out how to solve this problem,” said Jade Greco, a junior Biomedical Science major.

However, Forestell said that even though the campus has gone over the budget, financial aid will not be cut. “As long as students maintain good academic standing, their financial aid will be given to them,” he said.

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