Smaller student intake affects our budget
Fewer new students may have financial consequences for the faculty, who nevertheless expect to adjust and adapt without major difficulties
Dear staff
We now have a better overview of this year's intake and apart from the dimensioned programmes within the bio area, the intake of students in our programmes is lower than expected.
We have embarked on a major analysis to find possible explanations. In the media, there have been many different suggestions about the decline in enrolment at universities across the country.
Here it is particularly the result of Corona (travel abroad) and the large supply of jobs for young people (which has historically led to low intakes). The big question is whether this is a single year with particularly low admissions, whether the figures stabilise at the current level or fall further.
There is no doubt that we need to maintain our focus on recruiting students, which is not an easy task. The younger cohorts have many educational opportunities, not least in the big cities. At the same time, we see a political pressure to apply for welfare-related degree programmes.
In addition to focusing on admissions, we have an opportunity to improve the economy by increasing student retention. Unfortunately, we have some programmes with high dropout rates, even though society is in demand for graduates in the respective fields of study.
There are many reasons for dropping out, but we are gaining better and better knowledge of the students' well-being during their studies, most recently in the "Well-Being Project", from which we are now implementing various initiatives to improve well-being and thus hopefully increase retention.
The entire SDU is counting on the financial consequences of the low enrollment. At our faculty, we will in the coming time discuss possibilities for savings in our budgets. I expect that we can find the necessary savings by a joint effort.
The low enrolment may have an impact on the relocation of degree programs from Odense to the other campuses. At the Faculty of Science, we await the Ministry of Higher Education and Science and its investigation into the potential for offering IT programmes in Vejle.
Depending on the outcome of this investigation, it may have an impact on relocation to Kolding, and therefore this will be postponed until there is further clarification.
The upcoming general election may also have an impact on regionalisation, although the first Prime Minister's debate on Sunday did not give much hope that university policy would have a particularly high priority.
On the other hand, there is great support for university education from many companies and special interest organisations, which point out the great need for graduates within the STEM field for e.g. Life Science and the green transition.