San Diego State University says it has frozen hiring for most faculty and staff positions due to expected cuts in state funding, a setback that comes while the school is experiencing record enrollment.
President Adela de la Torre announced the partial freeze in a March 20 email to employees, noting that SDSU’s collective budget deficit for this fiscal year and the next two could amount to tens of millions of dollars.
The university says it has already reduced its current budget and is hustling to do more. SDSU currently has about 4,443 faculty and staff, not all of whom will be affected.
“There will be exceptions made on a case-by-case basis to fulfill critical positions,” SDSU said in a statement to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
The belt-tightening, and the use of one-time revenue streams, “will allow us to avoid and prevent the campus-wide layoffs we see elsewhere,” De la Torre, an economist, said in her email.
SDSU began bracing for trouble last year when it became apparent that the state was having serious budget problems.
The tension soared on Jan. 10 when Gov. Gavin Newsom said that the 5 percent budget increase he had promised to give the California State University and University of California systems for fiscal 2025-2026 would be delayed by two years.
Instead of a hike, Newsom said the next fiscal budget will include a proposed $375 million cut for the 23-campus CSU and a nearly $400 million cut for the 10-campus UC system.
SDSU also is concerned that it will not receive sufficient state funding to enable the university to keep growing. The main campus east of downtown San Diego surpassed 38,000 students last year for the first time.
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