This year, Butler will be ushering in the largest freshman class in the university’s history, a record-breaking 1,067 students.
The increase in students has left some upperclassmen wondering whether they will experience a decrease in financial aid dollars.
Tom Weede, vice president for enrollment management, said that while the office of enrollment was not anticipating or striving for a class of this size, it’s nothing for students to be concerned about.
“We were looking for almost exactly the same size class as we had last year—about 950—and we accepted almost exactly the same number of students as last year, but more students accepted our offer of admission,” Weede said.
Weede went on to say that the changes on campus to accommodate the incoming students will not affect the financial aid of neither the current students or students in the future.
Weede said that the additional money it will take to cover financial aid for the new students is essentially coming “from the students themselves.”
“Financial aid is the largest budget item in the Butler budget,” Weede said, “So when a student pays tuition, part of that goes toward the financial aid budget.”
Indiana state funding has been cut by over $150 million due to declining state revenues. Weede said that the cuts in the state’s budget have forced the university into making cuts in other departments.
“Instead of buying a new truck for the facilities program or raising salaries, we’re putting money into financial aid, because if we don’t have students, we don’t have salaries,” Weede said. “We have to make sure that we do what we can to help our students.”
“We’re just glad that students want to come to Butler, we’ll make the accommodations we need to make.”