All UNC System academic programs must be reviewed. Will that lead to more cuts?

When new students entered UNC Asheville and UNC Greensboro this fall and began thinking about what to study, they had fewer majors to choose from.

That’s because both universities, which are public and part of the 17-campus UNC System, underwent “academic portfolio reviews” last academic year that resulted in programs being cut from the universities’ offerings.

The cuts affected 20 programs at UNCG and five at UNCA , all of which will be phased out over the next few years. While students who previously declared their majors in the affected programs will be able to continue their studies, beginning this fall, new students are no longer being admitted to the programs.

The portfolio reviews came as each university faced mounting budgetary pressures tied to years of declining enrollments. Under a 2022 policy change by the UNC System Board of Governors, campuses in the public university system are funded largely based on their performance on a variety of measures, instead of enrollment growth, but they still receive funding partially based on student credit hours, which can be impacted by overall enrollment numbers.

Now, all universities in the public UNC System will be required to more regularly assess their academic offerings — and potentially make cuts.

The Board of Governors, which sets policy for all campuses in the university system, passed a revised policy mandating the reviews in May.

David English, chief academic officer for the UNC System, spoke to The News & Observer about the policy’s implications — including how it could help universities get ahead of major, sweeping cuts like those seen at UNCA and UNCG.

Revised policy will require more regular reviews

The revised policy, which governs academic program planning for all universities in the system, requires chancellors to review the portfolio of their campuses’ academic programs at least every seven years, if not more often.

“Primary responsibility for quality, efficiency, and productivity of academic degree programs rests at the campus level,” the policy states.

The seven-year pace of the required portfolio reviews is new under the revised policy, English said, and brings the UNC System more in line with the practices of other university systems across the country. Prior to the revision, the length of time between portfolio reviews — or whether the reviews happened at all — varied from campus to campus, English said.

In June, when UNC Asheville Chancellor Kimberly van Noort announced the departments she would eliminate following the university’s portfolio review, she cited a “reluctance to scrutinize and evolve our academic offerings” as a major factor that led to declining enrollment and subsequently necessitated the review.

During the months-long review at UNCG last academic year, students and faculty regularly protested and voiced opposition to the measures. At a January Board of Governors meeting, Andrew Kelly, the now-former UNC System Senior Vice President for Strategy and Policy, said he believed the lack of regular reviews across the system was one reason the review at UNCG got “so much attention.”

Campuses will be expected to spread the review throughout the seven-year period, which will likely take the form of reviewing groups of programs on a schedule that will avoid all of a university’s programs coming up for review at the seven-year mark. English said that could look like a campus reviewing one-seventh of its programs each year of the seven-year period.

“The goal there is that institutions have a better bead on, kind of, what’s working and what’s not earlier in the process,” English said, adding that such assessments could help campuses make targeted interventions to improve recruitment or outcomes in departments that lag others, or help leaders decide which programs they’ll invest in.

An existing requirement calls for the Board of Governors to receive and review reports every two years on the number of students enrolled in and graduating from each academic department. That remains unchanged under the revised policy. But the campus-level reviews will provide more depth, English said, helping campuses understand how all of their programs are performing.

“We’re looking for a more robust review of the program dynamics, and not just counts of students and enrollments and graduates,” English said.

What will be considered in the reviews?

When a campus undertakes a portfolio review, it will be required to evaluate the following for each academic program, per the revised policy:

• “Current and projected student demand, as measured by enrollments in the majors and degrees produced;”

• “Current and projected workforce demand, as measured by projected job growth and existing data on student employment outcomes;”

• “Student outcomes, including persistence, graduation, time to degree, and, where possible, post-graduation success;”

• “Program costs and productivity, including research, scholarship, and creative activity and student credit hours produced compared to the number and cost of faculty and staff;”

• “The contribution of the program to professions that are critical to the health, educational attainment, and quality of life of North Carolinians;” and

• Any additional considerations identified by the chancellor or by the UNC System president — currently Peter Hans.

Depending on the findings of the review, programs could either be expanded, eliminated or curtailed.

Will the policy lead to cuts like those at UNCA, UNCG?

Though the reviews all universities undertake will analyze similar metrics to the reviews at UNC Asheville and UNC Greensboro, English cautioned against concluding that the policy-mandated reviews will yield similar results to the ones seen at those schools.

UNCA and UNCG in recent years faced enrollment declines university-wide that led to significant budget deficits, which their respective campus leaders chose to address — at least partially — through portfolio reviews.

English said the declines and shortfalls were “very clear, acute” issues specific to those campuses, and the reviews their campus leaders developed “were very germane to their specific instances.”

“Those two institutions were, and are still, reacting to pretty significant institutional dynamics,” English said. “And we don’t see that at every institution.”

The revised policy is not designed to be a reaction to “critical” and “emergency” situations, English said.

Still, if another university were, at some point, to face similar issues as those at UNCA and UNCG, the policy could help them remedy the situation, English said.

“There’s nothing to say that, you know, another institution couldn’t find itself in a significant enrollment decline or issue,” English said. “But the goal of the policy is to be a little bit more comprehensive and forward-thinking.”

When does the policy go into effect?

Since the Board of Governors passed the revised policy in May, most of its requirements are already in effect.

But each campus and their respective chancellor are required to develop “clearly defined policies, procedures, and schedules” for the reviews and seek approval for the plans from their campus Board of Trustees by Jan. 1, 2025.