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Dive Brief:
- The State University of New York at Fredonia is sunsetting 10 undergraduate majors, four graduate programs and seven minors as it tackles an $8.1 million budget deficit, according to the university.
- After this fall, the public institution will stop taking new students for the programs being discontinued. Students currently enrolled will be able to complete their studies at SUNY Fredonia.
- As it works to close its budget gap, the university has also invested in student retention initiatives to steady enrollment and is exploring shared services with other SUNY institutions to save on operational expenses.
Dive Insight:
The academic cuts at SUNY Fredonia are part of a broader, multiyear financial sustainability plan aimed at “strengthening enrollment, improving efficiency, and managing expenses to support the university’s long-term future,” according to the university.
The programs winding down are set to enroll 111 students in fall 2026, while the minors are expected to have about 60 students. Altogether, that will represent less than 5% of SUNY Fredonia’s headcount, the university said.
SUNY Fredonia phases out over a dozen programs
The degrees and minors that the university is discontinuing
When reviewing the programs, officials focused on factors including enrollment trends, degree production, workforce alignment and “long-term program sustainability,” the university said on an FAQ page devoted to the cuts.
Many of the degrees slated for elimination have also seen their operating margins shrink significantly in recent years. A bachelor’s in political science, for example, went from generating a margin of nearly $42,000 in the 2021-22 academic year to losing $14,100 in 2024-25. Undergraduate degrees in economics, international studies and mathematics likewise went from positive to negative margins during that time.
Along with shaving expenses, the university said it wants to invest in areas where enrollment and student demand are growing. New graduate programs have helped increase SUNY Fredonia’s graduate enrollment by about 50% compared to three years ago, the institution said. It pointed to past program cuts that freed up money to invest in a new clinical mental health counseling graduate program and a new music studies degree.
In 2023, SUNY Fredonia’s deficit stood at $10 million — and that was after a $2.8 million infusion from state legislators that year.
“This is a situation that is unsustainable,” university President Stephen Kolison Jr. said at the time. “In short, our base expenditures simply far outweigh our revenues.”
The deficits have followed sharp enrollment declines in recent years. Between 2019 and 2024, fall headcount dropped 28.5% to 3,179 students, according to federal data. Meanwhile, the university’s operating revenue has fluctuated over the past five years.
In 2023, when announcing more than a dozen undergraduate program cuts, Kolison attributed the university’s deficit to the enrollment declines, describing a higher education ecosystem marked by “competition over a smaller base of college-bound students.”
SUNY Fredonia is still navigating those changes three years later. “Given today’s higher education landscape and our fiscal realities, we cannot afford to do everything,” Kolison said in a statement last week. “Hence, we have to be strategic about where to direct our efforts and resources regarding our academic array.”
