University Business – West Virginia University is potentially facing a $45 million budget deficit in the next fiscal year, and considering its current tuition and enrollment trends, that gulf can grow past $70 million in the next five years.
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As a result, President Gordon Gee is merging the College of the Creative Arts and Reed College of Media, heralding it as a “creative and innovative” transformation that recognizes its purpose to slash costs and improve administrative efficiency. The merger is “part of a strategic repositioning of the entire WVU System for success in a challenging collegiate landscape,” according to the announcement.
The college merger is the second announced in two years. WVU combined the College of Physical Activity and Sports Sciences and the College of Education and Human Services in May 2021 for similar reasons. Both mergers derive from a 2020 meeting between Gee and the Board of Governors, where the president urged the university to take proactive steps amid the public’s more skeptical outlook on higher education.
