Hawaii Pacific University is cutting faculty positions and reducing employee benefits to help contain costs as enrollment at the state’s largest private university has slipped 10 percent over the past year.
The downtown university’s enrollment dropped to about 6,700 students in the fall semester — down from the 7,463 students enrolled in HPU degree programs the year before.
The decrease is similar to declining college enrollments seen across the country. Between 2010 and 2013, freshmen enrollment at more than a quarter of the nation’s private four-year universities dropped 10 percent or more, according to a recent analysis by The Wall Street Journal.
Fewer students mean less tuition, HPU’s main revenue source.
Amid the drop-off, the contracts of 18 full-time faculty up for reappointment have not been renewed "due to a variety of reasons and in a range of departments," the university said.
The cuts represent about 7 percent of HPU’s 250 full-time faculty who teach courses for the university’s 50 undergraduate degree programs and 14 graduate programs, along with several hundred part-time and adjunct faculty.
HPU is also trimming the cost of some employee benefits, including a reduction in the employer contribution to retirement plans and an impending decrease in the tuition waiver benefit for full-time employees and their dependents.
"Guided by our strategic plan, HPU is forging a path to deliver the highest quality of education — with increased services, programming and spaces — both efficiently and cost-effectively," Janet Kloenhamer, executive vice president for administration and general counsel, said in a statement to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
"Unlike public universities that receive state funding, HPU’s operating budget is largely from tuition dollars and private gifts. The realignment of existing resources is necessary to make long-term investments to ensure that HPU becomes an even better, stronger university," Kloenhamer said.
Last summer, HPU cut about 20 administrative and executive positions across all departments to help offset a smaller drop in enrollment.
Several professors the newspaper contacted declined to comment about the budget cuts.
The nonprofit university reported $101.6 million in revenue — with about $96.5 million from tuition and fees — and expenses of $109.8 million on its 2012 tax filings with the IRS, the most recent forms on file.
The university says it has tried to keep tuition increases minimal. Full-time undergraduate tuition for the 2014-15 school year is $20,930, up less than 5 percent from last school year.
HPU also provides about $20 million a year in scholarships.
Kloenhamer said the drop-off in enrollment is mostly from a decline in HPU’s military campus programs, which she attributed to the impact federal sequestration is having on tuition aid for military students.
"While we continue to anticipate a decline in enrollment in military campus programs, fall 2015 enrollment numbers are above target," she said.
Analysts say the national decline in college enrollment is expected to last several years, pointing to a number of factors that include fewer graduating high school seniors across the country, escalating student debt and a weak job market for college graduates. Also, many adults who went back to school during the recession have since re-entered the workforce.
Kloenhamer said class availability will not be affected by the faculty cuts, adding that "HPU continues to hire part- and full-time faculty throughout the year dependent upon student demand."
The university says it runs the largest undergraduate nursing program in the state and the state’s largest Master of Business Administration program.
The cost-cutting comes as HPU embarks on a major redevelopment project — likely to cost an estimated $100 million — to transform the nearby Aloha Tower Marketplace into a community hub with a mix of student dormitories on the center’s second floor and meeting spaces, offices, shops and restaurants below.
The project is being funded mostly through low-interest bond financing and private gifts.
The idea is to eventually create an urban university corridor, connecting HPU’s main campus on upper Fort Street Mall to the Aloha Tower project.
