Arizona State University has announced an unspecified, first-ever enrollment cap and plans to close about four dozen academic programs because of $88 million in state-imposed budget reductions.
ASU spokeswoman Sharon Keeler said Tuesday that no specific enrollment ceiling was announced immediately, but closures will start at once.
Imposition of an enrollment cap is a dramatic departure for the university, which since 2002 has actively increased its enrollment. Current enrollment is expected to top last spring's 59,871 students on all ASU campuses.
"For the past seven years, ASU has expanded its enrollment, added new academic programs and enhanced quality and productivity at every level to serve the people of Arizona better," President Michael Crow said in a release.
"Making cuts of this sort now is extremely painful to all of us at ASU, but we have no choice."
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New, unspecified staff and clinical faculty layoffs will be included above recent previous reductions. The earlier cuts eliminated more than 550 staff positions and more than 200 faculty associates and instituted mandatory 10- to 15-day furloughs for all employees.
Most of the affected programs announced Tuesday are on the Tempe campus, but administrative programs on the Polytechnic and ASU West campuses will be scaled down.
Students in programs that are to close will be able to complete their degrees, Keeler said.
The application deadline for next semester's freshman class will end March 1, five months earlier than normal.
The $88 million reduction that the Legislature enacted represented 18 percent of the $480.2 million fiscal 2009 state appropriation for ASU.
Last month, Gov. Jan Brewer signed legislation ordering a $141.5 million reduction for the statewide university system. That comes on top of an earlier $50 million cut imposed on the three state schools.
The University of Arizona has announced elimination of 600 jobs, elimination of many outreach and community-based activities, five-day furloughs for all state-funded faculty and staff starting July 1, merging or consolidating academic and administrative units and trimming its academic colleges from 16 to 13.
Northern Arizona University, meanwhile, has announced closure of its Social Research Center public-opinion research laboratory and its Center for High Altitude Training on top of keeping more than 100 positions unfilled.
Keeler said some ASU programs will be "disestablished," meaning the major will continue to be offered under another administrative structure. Others will be closed — eliminated entirely — she said.
Programs will be closed in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Herberger College of the Arts, the Mary Lou Fulton College of Education, the College of Teacher Education and Leadership, the College of Technology & Innovation and the Morrison School of Management and Agribusiness.
