{"id":37972,"date":"2022-10-07T22:49:12","date_gmt":"2022-10-08T04:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/enrollment-down-at-fort-lewis-college\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:41:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:41:13","slug":"enrollment-down-at-fort-lewis-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/enrollment-down-at-fort-lewis-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Enrollment down at Fort Lewis College"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Courtesy
Courtesy of Fort Lewis College<br><br>Fort Lewis College anticipates furloughs and layoffs to deal with a budget shortfall during the 2020-21 school year.<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Overall enrollment at Fort Lewis College is down by 5.3%, according to a letter sent to FLC employees from its president, Tom Stritikus. Though enrollment was previously up the last two years during the pandemic, the college now has 175 fewer undergraduate and graduate students than fall 2021.<\/p>\n

Stritikus\u2019 letter states, \u201cI am writing to let you know that despite the amazing efforts of many of our colleagues, we did not hit our enrollment targets for the fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter goes on to highlight the initial analysis from FLC\u2019s finance team, which points to out-of-state Native Americans as being the largest demographic of students to decrease in numbers for the 2022 enrollment. It does not, however, specify a decrease in any other student demographics, nor draw conclusions as to why out-of-state Native American student numbers are down.<\/p>\n

FLC spokeswoman Lauren Pope said she believes the reason out-of-state Native Americans are the largest demographic being down is because they are the largest demographic of students at the college.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still at a point of analyzing the numbers in our student demographic enrollment for fall 2022, but that has to be one of the main reasons,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Whether other student demographics saw similar declines is not yet clear, Pope said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still analyzing the data at this time,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not sure about our other students, but we still have 850 students for fall semester, which is the second highest we\u2019ve had since 2016, so that\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decrease in student enrollment is expected to have only a nominal budgetary effect for the 2022-23 school year, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re always considering how we can minimize the impact on students, as we align our budget considerations with our strategic plan,\u201d Pope said. \u201cWe\u2019re still on a trajectory of growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Stritikus\u2019 letter stresses the long-term effects if FLC is unable to minimize declining enrollment.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur five-year budget model reveals potentially large deficits in future years that likely cannot be addressed through enrollment and revenue growth alone,\u201d he wrote. \u201cWe need to act in the next 18 months to ensure that we do not face large deficits in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stritikus\u2019 letter then focuses on what will be necessary for the college going forward in terms of planning, spending and investing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will consider limited and strategic budget reductions,\u201d the letter states. \u201cAs we have done throughout good times and bad, our strategic plan will guide our decision-making, and we will continue to make investments to strengthen student success, enrollment growth, and our culture as an institution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stritikus had agreed to a phone interview with The Durango Herald<\/em>, but the college canceled the meeting Thursday night saying he was \u201cout of service.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pope pointed to the positives of FLC\u2019s fall semester.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite national trends, Fort Lewis College\u2019s enrollment went up the last two years, and we\u2019ve had a record-breaking year in philanthropy (FLC donors),\u201d she said. \u201cWe have a lot of great things going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stritikus similarly ends his letter to his colleagues with a hopeful conclusion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remain optimistic that Fort Lewis College will make the right decisions so we continue our strong trajectory.\u201d<\/p>\n

molsen@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

An earlier version of the story misstated Pope\u2019s comments as a five-year plan rather than a strategic plan and minimizing the impact of lower enrollment instead of minimizing impact on students \u201cas we align our budget considerations with our strategic plan.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2022 head count has 175 fewer students than last year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[132,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-37972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-fort-lewis-college","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37972"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83860,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37972\/revisions\/83860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37972"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=37972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}