The first installment in the spring series of strategic planning campus forums, held in the Harper Center last Thursday, focused on a financial overview of the University — the dollars, cents and fiscal trends at play, and how they align with the priorities of the strategic plan.
Tom Murray, PhD, provost, and Jan Madsen, executive vice president, led the session.
Murray opened the forum with a look at the broader higher education landscape, including the market forces and demographic shifts in enrollment. The number of high school graduates is on the decline — “a national phenomenon, but more acute in the Northeast and Midwest,” Murray said. Simultaneously, potential freshman students and their families report rising cost sensitivity and enrollment competition.
Given these pressures on our undergraduate environment, and with “graduate growth vastly outpacing undergraduate growth,” he said, Creighton is broadening opportunities in adult learning. Across the country, adult professionals are pursuing additional education, including short-form credentials — at a rate six times greater than master’s degree enrollment — and professional master’s degrees.
Unlike a master’s degree that is traditionally discipline-focused, professional master’s degrees are “more focused toward a specific career,” Murray explained. “Rather than a master’s in English, it might be a master’s in journalistic writing from an English department.”
And, not unlike potential undergraduates, adult learners want to see evidence of a return on investment. A current initiative underway to redesign the Graduate School webpages, Murray said, will enhance Creighton as a valuable choice for prospective learners.
The necessary reaction to these trends, he said, is taking a more strategic approach to “maximizing the Creighton mission.” That entails a shift from an even spread of spending to targeted investments in the strategic plan’s priorities.
Now in its implementation stage, the strategic plan remains an evolving document. “We continue to listen and continue to refine it as we go forward,” Murray said. “We have to be smart with resources.”
Shifting to the financial landscape of Creighton, Madsen identified three keys to strong strategic plan financials: growing selected academic programs, increasing philanthropy — for capital projects, scholarships and academic programs — and more expense efficiency through good stewardship.
In a “simplified scorecard,” Madsen said, of Creighton’s financial strategy projections, undergraduate enrollment is in the green. A larger-than-expected freshman class in the fall of 2018 increased undergraduate net tuition revenue by 13 percent. Graduate and corporate partnerships and the Omaha-based health sciences program show less growth than planned in the financial model. Within philanthropy, capital support is 9 percent behind last year, but with several large donor solicitations in play, Madsen is optimistic for an improved score by the end of the fiscal year.
Murray touched on Phoenix with an update to the construction schedule and the health sciences expansion efforts. He also provided a glimpse of a new data-driven initiative supporting the strategic plan — a “dashboard,” he said, for deans and goal leaders to track metrics for each strategic goal. Metrics include, for example, retention rate, cost per student and percent of graduates demonstrating liberal arts values.
Current financial standings show a “very strong” 7 percent growth in tuition revenue from the prior year, Madsen said, bolstered by tuition rate increases and enrollment growth in undergraduate and dental programs.
Expenses also grew by 7 percent — partially due to the higher enrollment numbers. With more students come more faculty and staff, more software and more utility usage — particularly higher heating bills during the long, cold winter.
The winter also dropped a lot of snow and added expense for removal. “We always plan for those snows,” Madsen said, “but we had a few more than we would typically have.” While the weather stressed our services this year, Madsen said that ongoing campus energy consumption continues to be evaluated for opportunities to further our sustainability goals.
Madsen noted that with a new campus-wide budget transparency process underway, the fiscal year planning cycle will be longer than typical. As the committee continues to evaluate the strategic re-alignment of resources, Madsen encourages mindful spending of the year’s remaining budgets.
“We know that our Jesuit, Catholic identity and the breadth of our programs are big advantages for us,” Madsen said, “and we need to leverage that to grow our resources for campus.”
See the complete schedule of spring campus forums, along with links to forum replays and other resources, at the Events and Forums page of the strategic planning website, and remember to RSVP to future forums to ensure ample seating is available.
