In an email titled “Enrollment is everyone’s responsibility” sent to faculty and staff, Richard Muma and Shirley Lefever said that Wichita State is facing a $2 million gap in its budget following drops in graduate student applications “both domestically and internationally.”

Between fall 2022 and fall 2023, the graduate student headcount across the university fell by nearly 300 students. The biggest offender in this drop-off was the College of Engineering, which saw a 24% drop in enrollment.

The next biggest and only other drop in graduate enrollment was a 7% fall in the College of Health Professions.

This comes after graduate enrollment in the College of Engineering nearly doubled between fall 2021 and fall 2022.

WSU administration laid out its “measures” to “bolster applications and admissions” in graduate programs at the university, which include:

• Removing the GRE requirement for admissions
• Making the Intensive English program’s tuition “more competitive” 
• Setting enrollment goals for programs with deans, which, if not met, “further interventions will be implemented”

During public forum at a Student Senate meeting on Feb. 7, David Miller, the university’s budget director, spoke about the university’s financial “challenge” in regard to international graduate students.

Miller said that credit hours generated by graduate students fell by “about 11%” in the fall of 2023. Graduate students pay a higher tuition rate than undergraduate students, and international graduate students “pay an even higher rate.”

“That (graduate student enrollment) is something we are going to have to wrestle with in this next upcoming budget cycle because if we don’t start growing more on the graduate side, we’ll have to figure out how to make up those revenue losses,” Miller said.

According to the president and provost’s email, closing that gap will manifest “in the form of budget cuts.”

Editor’s note: The headline of this story has been changed for clarity.