/ In her first year in office, President Joyner investigated and addressed St. Norbert College’s financial challenges through the “Preserving the St. Norbert Legacy: A Shared Promise of Stewardship 2024” initiative. This effort focused on long-term sustainability and was designed to remain true to the College’s mission. In response to demographic shifts and inflationary pressures, the College took immediate action to reduce its operating budget by nearly $12 million, all in service of our shared mission.
The plan emphasizes operational excellence by managing tuition dollars, reducing costs, making strategic investments such as our athletics optimization strategy that adds competitive club sports to attract students, and pursuing new approaches to enhance academic quality and student success, such as the online educational options in high-demand areas like healthcare and technology. This strategic approach, guided by shared governance between faculty and administration, instills confidence in the College’s future.
The administration and leadership of St. Norbert College are unwavering in our commitment to building financial strength and operational excellence. This resilience is reflected in our continued work through the “Preserving the St. Norbert Legacy: A Shared Promise of Stewardship 2025.” Given the need to cut a minimum of $7 million in recurring expenses for the upcoming fiscal year, we are actively managing the College’s financial situation and have the right plan and approach to overcome these financial threats. Our commitment to operational excellence and educational quality ensures that the College’s financial situation is a temporary challenge. St. Norbert College will emerge even more mission-driven, student-centered, and financially sustainable.
During the past few years, St. Norbert College has posted negative annual operating performance, meaning its expenses have outpaced its revenues. This is due to a number of external factors and internal decisions over time. Like many colleges nationwide, demographic shifts, changes in college-going rates, increased competition, rising discount rates and inflationary pressures have attenuated net revenue at SNC. Internally, despite St. Norbert College serving 350 fewer students as of fall 2023 as compared to fall 2018, the number of faculty FTE was the highest it has been in at least the past decade.
These dynamics are creating disruptions throughout the higher education sector. Fewer students attending colleges nationwide has led to more than 100 colleges and universities closing or merging since 2016. This underscores the urgency for decisive action while St. Norbert College is still fundamentally strong in terms of its balance sheet. Though difficult, SNC’s decisions to live within its means are required to maintain educational quality, ensure student success and prevent deterioration of its financial position.
SNC’s approach to fiscal responsibility by simply ensuring balanced annual budgets is aligned with its mission of promoting accessibility and affordability through generous financial aid packages. While we have heard students lament the nearly $45,000 annual undergraduate tuition sticker price, the average SNC student actually pays less than $19,000.
The Board of Trustees has directed the college’s leadership to present only balanced annual budgets. This will reduce future budget deficit projections and prevent further erosion of the college’s annual financial performance. Together with college leadership, President Joyner is focusing on mission integration, educational quality, and student success while working to improve operations, contain costs, and identify ways to generate additional revenue. SNC is putting students first by maintaining its commitment to accessibility and affordability while offering the same first-rate educational experiences.
The Preserving the St. Norbert Legacy: A Shared Promise of Stewardship initiative is a proactive approach to ensure the long-term sustainability and success of St. Norbert College. By implementing strategic measures to address financial challenges while maintaining educational quality, the college is laying a solid foundation for diversification and innovation. Successful innovation means more opportunities for current and future students to receive a transformative education that prepares them for success in an ever-changing world.
One of the initiative’s key aspects is its commitment to accessibility and affordability. By creating a sustainable budget model that minimizes tuition increases, St. Norbert College ensures that higher education remains accessible to students from diverse backgrounds. This commitment enhances the college’s reputation as a leader in education and fosters a more inclusive and equitable community.
These problems are not unique to SNC. Higher education institutions are facing many challenges, including declining enrollment, increasing competition, rising discount rates, and heightened scrutiny over the value of a college degree.
SNC is acting from a position of relative strength as it adjusts its staffing to mirror its student population. These actions are creating an even stronger foundation as we prepare to weather the headwinds facing higher education. President Joyner is an experienced college president who has successfully strengthened other schools facing similar financial challenges. In a time when the economic model of higher education is being seriously challenged, St. Norbert College is positioning itself to be a model for creating a mission-focused, student-centered and financially sustainable liberal arts college in the 21st century.
Since announcing alignment with Dignitas Infinita in September 2024, the institution has held several forums to discuss this change with students, faculty and staff. Below is a list of events and engagement opportunities the administration has hosted in Fall and early Winter 2024.
September 2024
October 2024
November 2024
December 2024
Throughout Fall 2024: Individual Meetings
Ad hoc meetings were held with individuals interested in discussing the initiative.
Together with college leadership, President Joyner has developed the Preserving the St. Norbert Legacy: A Shared Promise of Stewardship initiative. This plan focuses on mission integration, educational quality, and student success while working to improve operations, contain costs and identify ways to generate additional revenue.
We are committed to providing a transformational educational experience that changes the lives of students. Over the next few years, we will be adding new programs to meet the demands of the students and the current workforce. Starting in fall 2024, we are adding a Robotics minor, Sustainability minor, Data Analytics minor, Digital Marketing minor, Project Management minor, Game Development concentration, certificate in Arts Management, Engineering Physics major, Management major, Finance major, Marketing major and a Supply Chain Management major.
Additionally, in fall 2025, we will be offering two new athletic club sports which include STUNT and men’s ice hockey.
We will continue to renew and invest in the student experience – the curricular and co-curricular
– to offer a high-quality education and produce meaningful outcomes.
One way we can lead our institution through the challenges currently facing higher education is to enter into innovative partnerships such as this one to continue to provide students with an exceptional academic experience.
In a first-of-its-kind partnership in the region, UW-Green Bay (UWGB) has signed an articulation agreement with St. Norbert College (SNC) that will allow students in selected degree programs to seamlessly study at both institutions. Program partnerships may start as soon as fall 2024.
This sharing of resources provides students from the region (and beyond) with an opportunity to take classes more easily at either of the Northeast Wisconsin four-year campuses, regardless of campus
residence or enrollment. The agreement focuses on the students' needs and provides more
opportunities for degree pursuit where a student can augment the general education they receive at
one school with a degree program available at the other.
Currently, the following classes/program credits will transfer between SNC and UWGB:
Classes SNC students can take at UWGB:
St. Norbert College is proactively taking the steps needed to ensure its financial strength for the future. We are committed to adding new programs to meet the current demands of the students and the workforce, as well as position the college for future success.
Starting in fall 2024, we are adding these programs:
Additionally, in fall 2025, we will be offering two new athletic programs which include STUNT and men’s ice hockey.
We are currently assessing our areas of study to make sure we are positioning ourselves to meet the demand of our current and future students. This process of academic program review may lead to the discontinuation of programs no longer in demand. When colleges or universities discontinue a particular academic program (e.g. major or minor), they stop accepting new students into the program and teach out their existing students. Students can contact the Academic Advising & Career Development Center with any questions.
No. When students are admitted into an academic program, the college commits to supporting their progress through graduation from that program. When colleges or universities discontinue a particular academic program (e.g., major or minor), they stop accepting new students into the program and teach out their existing students. Students can contact the Academic Advising & Career Development Center with any questions.
The Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, in consultation with the Deans Council, analyzed key data sets from an outside vendor, rpk, the Office of Institutional Effectiveness, and the Academic Program Prioritization process, which was led by the Curriculum and Education Policy Committee and selected members of the Interim Faculty Senate, to determine which non-tenured faculty lines should be eliminated to rightsize the faculty given multiple years of declining student enrollment.
Names or the programs where the personnel reductions have occurred will not be released in
accordance with our legal and ethical responsibilities to protect employee privacy.
We will support students to ensure that they can receive the classes they need to graduate. Our Academic Program Prioritization Process is considering the historic enrollment and current demand for all our academic programs. Any changes made to areas of study will take into account student demand and the ability of students to complete their course of study.
St. Norbert College is proactively taking the steps needed to ensure its financial strength for the future. These actions include revenue generation strategies and are likely to include additional reductions. These changes will be reviewed carefully so that we can continue to provide a high-quality education that is accessible and affordable for generations to come.
St. Norbert College values the liberal arts as one of its three core traditions. As is described in the college’s Liberal Arts Identity Statement, “The liberal arts tradition inspires in its students a love of learning and provides the skills requisite to carry their learning beyond the confines of the College environment to extend over the course of a lifetime. In today’s fast-paced world of change, an education that emphasizes lifelong learning is critical in that the specific skills taught today may find themselves antiquated tomorrow, but the ability to continually teach oneself is a skill that will never find itself out of date.”
The liberal arts is broadly inclusive, comprising the Humanities, the Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, and the Visual and Performing Arts.
One of the college’s priorities is our commitment to accessibility and affordability. By creating a sustainable budget model that minimizes tuition increases, St. Norbert College ensures that higher education remains accessible to students from diverse backgrounds. This commitment enhances the college’s reputation as a leader in education and fosters a more inclusive and equitable community.
To make college more affordable, we offer generous financial aid packages. Annually, about 97 percent of our first-time, first-year students receive some form of financial aid, which can include scholarships, grants, loans and work-study. In terms of cost, an education from SNC is competitive — both with other private colleges and with public ones. It’s important to know that SNC also has a four-year graduation guarantee and one of the best four-year graduation rates in the Midwest. Graduating in four years means our students pay for college for fewer years than students in many other schools, and begin earning a salary ahead of many of their peers.
Due to the generosity of St. Norbert College alumni and stakeholders, the construction of a state-of-the-art business school is underway. This building will not serve business students exclusively; its indoor and outdoor spaces are being designed to welcome and benefit all of campus along with the local community. More than one-third of SNC students take a business course during their time on campus. Our goal is to keep SNC on the cutting edge of academia by providing top-level facilities to current and future students.
We are here to help and address any questions or concerns. For questions regarding academic programming, you can reach out to:
Division of Academic Affairs
Email: acadaffairs@snc.edu
Academic Advising & Career Development Center
Phone:920-403-3040
Email: advise@snc.edu
Office Hours: Mon.-Friday: 8:00 a.m - 4:30 p.m.
Division of Student Affairs
Phone: 920-403-3055
Email: sadivision@snc.edu
Questions regarding the Preserving the St. Norbert Legacy plan can be emailed to: preservingthelegacy@snc.edu
