Discussion 10

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by Matthew McClellan3 views·Updated Apr 14, 2022
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  1. Hello. Um
  2. so my name is Matthew McClellan.
  3. And we're gonna go through question to for this week's discussion,
  4. uh the case study involving Yukon and raising tuition and it's
  5. at the best policy and how else could we do this?
  6. And how can we immediate rising costs and what was the, you know, extra spending,
  7. all that, y'all all read this case study.
  8. Um
  9. So these are just some of my thoughts on
  10. the case study and answer some of the questions that
  11. that was posed to us and we'll go from there.
  12. So what would I do if I was the CFO in this situation?
  13. Well,
  14. the first thing I would do is not sound quite
  15. as terse and harsh as this particular author did.
  16. It seemed to me that they focused right in on on what they deemed to
  17. be extraneous costs and that raising tuition was
  18. the first thing that they jumped to and
  19. I wouldn't take that tone.
  20. That's the first thing that I would do if I was the CFO in this situation.
  21. The second thing that I might do is is actually look at those,
  22. look at all the costs of the that the university is undertaking.
  23. Look at all the expenditures.
  24. Look at other ways that we can make up these budget shortfalls.
  25. Um
  26. it might involve cutting spending. It also involve raising tuition.
  27. I don't think that I would take anything off the table
  28. uh to begin with if I was in this situation.
  29. Uh making the budget is an important thing and and
  30. not narrowing in on one specific avenue I think is
  31. how I would start handling this as the CFO.
  32. Alright, uh does the case study offer any viable solutions?
  33. Well, yeah, yeah, cutting back on spending absolutely.
  34. Is a viable solution, is it the best solution?
  35. Well, that's hard to say because I didn't look at you cons
  36. ah
  37. you know, I'm not in that situation.
  38. Uh Do I think that there's a lot
  39. of wasteful spending uh at higher education institutions?
  40. Absolutely. Does some of that need to go away? Absolutely. Uh
  41. Did it offer any solutions other than
  42. cutting spending? Not really,
  43. no, it really didn't. Um So I'm not sure that I really didn't think that this offered.
  44. I wouldn't say that it's not viable because absolutely, again,
  45. you can make up those cost differences by cutting spending all you want,
  46. But does that impact the the mission of the university in such
  47. a way that it is detrimental to the future of that university?
  48. And when you hone in on one specific solution
  49. and you don't allow for any flexibility in that?
  50. I'm not sure that that's a viable solution?
  51. Uh It will again meet the financial goals, but it may
  52. at what cost
  53. at what cost
  54. does it meet those those solutions?
  55. And is that the best course for the university to to go down?
  56. I just don't think that that's the case in in this particular instance.
  57. So what additional solutions would I propose if I were the CFO?
  58. Well, the first thing would be,
  59. I would look at some of those expenditures do they fall
  60. in line with what the mission of the university is.
  61. There's some things that just cost a lot of money and, and while the,
  62. the impact may seem small to the outside,
  63. it's a fundamental piece that that extends the university's mission.
  64. And you have to look at that. Uh Maybe raising tuition is the best course of action. Um
  65. but I would start to examine, I would look at the college's mission, I would look at
  66. everything again, like I said at the beginning and nothing's off the table.
  67. I wouldn't
  68. Lock myself into 1, 1 place or another. Um
  69. but then I would probably say, okay, let's look at reducing spending in some,
  70. some other places.
  71. Let's see what we can do to um
  72. Maybe we, we let some of the naturally occurring attrition,
  73. people retiring that were higher salaries,
  74. we can hire replacements in a lower cost or let
  75. those positions sit vacant for for a little while.
  76. I would look at some other cost saving measures along with raising tuition um
  77. go to the state legislatures and asked for more money.
  78. Look for more grants, encourage faculty members to, to go for more grants.
  79. All of those things would come into play. If I were the CFO there, I would certainly,
  80. it
  81. is,
  82. I was just really taking,
  83. taking back in this this case study of just how quickly
  84. they jumped on reduced spending and raising tuition was was bad.
  85. I was just taken aback by just how quickly they jumped on that.
  86. Um,
  87. anyway, some of my thoughts for this,
  88. uh looking forward to hearing from some of the rest of you and
  89. see what you all thought about all this. So, thank you very much.