Reducing Our Academic Portfolio

The Challenge

We were charged to reduce our academic portfolio.  This is a challenging but necessary task in order to position the university to not only survive today but to thrive in the future. Our academic portfolio is currently larger than many universities that are more than double our size. We currently maintain 101 undergraduate programs, 67 master’s programs, and three doctoral programs.

This is 13% larger than Rowan University’s portfolio of 90 bachelor’s programs, 48 master’s programs, two professional programs, and nine doctoral programs. Rowan University enrolls 22,080 students – nearly four times the number of students we enroll.

If we compare ourselves to Rutgers-Newark, we see that we have 47% more programs than they have even though they have nearly 2,500 more students enrolled. We have more than twice as many programs as our closest peer, East Stroudsburg University.

This is not tenable. We cannot stretch our resources to adequately support and sustain so many programs. Our portfolio strains our administrative capacities, leads to low-enrolled courses, and prevents students from being able to complete their programs in a timely manner. Each program requires oversight in terms of scheduling, catalog review, graduation clearances, and the such. We struggle to determine the best investments for marketing. We cannot sustain this many programs, and this is why we were charged to reduce our portfolio by at least 30%. 

We face another challenge within our academic portfolio. We are competing with ourselves. Currently, we offer several programs that attract the same market of students. In many cases, these programs have few, if any, courses that overlap with their adjacent but competing programs. As a result, we struggle to maintain adequate enrollment to run upper-level courses. It is challenging enough to address external competition, but we have unfortunately set ourselves up to have to also deal with this internal competition.

The Framework

To address the portfolio reduction, we focused on three key principles: mission, market, and margins. Considerations related to mission influenced all analysis. When discussing the programs and their relationship to the university’s mission as a minority serving institution, we characterized those relationships according to four distinctions.

We considered programs mission essential if their absence would clearly and explicitly challenge or undermine the mission of the university. If we determined that a program was mission essential, then we decided to maintain it and work to make it as efficient as possible.

We considered programs mission consistent if they were consistent with our mission, but their absence would not challenge or undermine the mission of the university. When we identified programs as mission consistent, we determined that we should maintain the programs only if they were responsive to the market and generated sufficient revenue.

We considered programs mission adjacent if they were not explicitly aligned to our mission, but they did not detract from the mission. These programs may serve entrepreneurial functions. We determined that mission adjacent programs should be maintained if they are generating revenue that could supplement any mission essential programs that did not generate sufficient revenue. We also considered the degree to which mission adjacent programs may support/enhance the institutional reputation and/or serve as funnels for additional enrollment. 

Finally, we examined how programs may have evolved to the point where they were characterized as mission inconsistent. If we identified any program that was no longer consistent with the mission of the institution, we would recommend that the program be modified if it was generating significant revenue. Otherwise, these programs should be removed.

We did not apply the rubric to all 171 programs before engaging in the other analysis. Instead, throughout the iterative review of programs, we would reference these four distinctions.

When we considered market, we explored the degree to which the programs under review were consistent with market trends and needs. This included examining the degree to which programs reflect new and/or changing occupations. We also considered the degree to which programs addressed workforce needs (labor shortages).

If a new program did not yet have sufficient enrollment to warrant a large return on investment, we then reviewed and discussed the market context for the program. Similarly, if a program was struggling with enrollment, we would look to see if the struggle may be a result of competing institutions that have captured a large percent of potential students.

Compelling market factors could override current margins. If we saw that the market for a program was not sustainable, then we took that very seriously when we deliberated about programs to close. Conversely, if we could see evidence that the market was viable and if we believed, given trends we are seeing, that the market would grow, we weighted that significantly during the deliberations.

The margins for programs played a central role in our deliberations. As we examined the return on investment (ROI) for programs, we tried to ensure that we were measuring consistently across all programs.

We did not consider overhead costs. We also did not factor in supplemental instruction. Instead, we considered fixed costs related to programs: full-time faculty and staff associated with a program, required program courses, and published tuition rate revenue.

For each department/program, we had the total salary costs for faculty and staff. We then considered those fixed costs in relation to the tuition revenue generated. Again, to be consistent, we calculated the published tuition rates for Fall of 2021 and Spring of 2022. We did not consider tuition discounting. Therefore, the ROIs we generated were not actual, but they were providing consistent comparisons.

We examined both ROI of major credits and ROI of total credits. We recognized that many programs offer service courses, but we determined that the service courses, in and of themselves, were not fixed revenue. Service courses were given more serious consideration if they were required in other majors. While the service courses were a consideration, the revenue they generated did not override low ROI on major courses.

We also looked at this data in relation to the number of majors in each program. While we focused on the programs initially identified by rpk Group as having low size and growth, we reviewed all programs/departments in terms of number of majors and ROI for credit hours generated within the majors. When we reviewed programs with moderate to low majors and ROI, we also considered external factors. Are the numbers low due to COVID-19? Is it a new program showing low numbers but a growth trajectory? 

Institutional effectiveness provided data regarding the credit hours generated by major. We divided the revenue by the salary costs to determine the major ROI. Where we saw programs of concern, we pulled total credit hours generated according to Report 65 (the internal query that provides enrollment by term and program code) and calculated ROI according to total credit hours generated.

For example, when we reviewed one department/program, we saw that the salary costs for that program were $471,661.14. This department/program generated 638 total undergraduate credits in FY22. We used the published tuition rates of $433 for undergraduate credits. Keep in mind, that is not the amount of revenue the university received. The university, likely, received far less. This department/program generated $276,254 in our “Panglossian” model. Their ROI was 0.59. This means for every dollar we spent in fixed costs – salaries – the university ideally made 59 cents. This ROI does not include other instructional costs like supplies, facilities, and administrative and student support costs. This same program maintains 28 majors, and the trendline indicates that both the number of majors and the credit hours have declined over time. 

For comparison’s sake, another department/program generated 1680 total undergraduate credit hours - $727,440 in “ideal” tuition revenue. Their salary costs were $193,986.60. Their ROI was 3.75.

The process of identifying possible program closures was an iterative process. While the margins – as initially identified by rkp Group and further analyzed by the numbers we received from institutional effectiveness and manually pulled from Report 65 – drew our attention to possible programs, we discussed the margins in relation to both mission and market.

We considered whether programs were competing with other programs in the portfolio. We also considered the potential loss of students based upon programs closing. We discussed whether an institution our size has the capacity to support some programs or if they are programs more suited to larger universities in the state. We also considered the potential impact on our mission if programs closed.

Throughout the process, the deans worked as a team. We posed questions to one another regarding the programs recommended for closure and those that were not recommended. While we were sensitive to the personnel implications regarding the program closures, we kept our focus on the program decisions. It was only after identifying the programs that we then addressed the faculty, staff, and organizational implications of our recommendations.

Loss is never easy. Losing programs from our portfolio is painful. However, we know that we are not going to recover the full amount of enrollment loss. We cannot anticipate 8,000 undergraduate students moving forward. We need to set goals and prepare ourselves for an enrollment of 4,500-5,000.

In order to position ourselves to serve our future student population, we need to ensure that our academic portfolio is sustainable. We need to ensure that we are investing in the essential support our students need. We need to ensure that we are supporting faculty as teachers, scholars, and vital community members of NJCU. The State recognized this and gave us this charge. We believe our recommendations will position us to thrive moving forward.

Sincerely,

Donna Adair Breault, Ph.D.
Acting Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs
New Jersey City University