PEORIA, Ill. – Bradley University students are sharing their concerns and feelings in the wake of a proposal to cut programs and jobs to save the university around $13 million.
The university is proposing eliminating 17 programs along with five additional programs to be cut, but have classes remain. It would also cut 47 faculty positions, with an additional 21 to be eliminated through attrition.
The university says the cuts will impact around 3.5% of the student population, and any student enrolled in those programs will still be able to finish their degrees.
Samson Averehi is a sophomore finance major, who says he’s seen a lot of talk on social media about the cuts.
“Even people who didn’t have their, like, programs or major cuts are still, like, upset by it because it’s just, it’s kind of ridiculous,” Averehi said.
Averehi says the cuts could have been avoided if the university made better financial decisions. He says one place money could have been saved was not giving iPads to incoming freshmen.
Michael Cabrera, a freshman industrial engineering major, says while his major is safe, it’s not the case for some of his close friends in manufacturing technology, one of the programs proposed to be eliminated.
“When they got the email, they were very upset,” Cabrera said. “Because this is going to, like, it’s gonna kind of taint the program itself. Like, you’re going to graduate from a college with that degree that’s no longer offered here at Bradley.”
Cabrera says he has been trying to encourage those friends by telling them they’ll still be able to graduate.
Connor Burns, a senior political science major, has been through this experience already. He came to Bradley as a pre-law major, but found out in an email over the summer that the program was being cut.
“Just getting through the pandemic and all the difficulties that brought, and then all of the sudden to have this kind of pop-up out of seemingly nowhere to some of us, it just kind of blindsided us, and was highly frustrating,” Burns said.
Burns says friends who are potentially getting affected by the cuts have feelings of panic of what might come next, and anger at the situation.
He says those students who are unhappy with the decisions should attend student government meetings and make their voices heard.
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