Dive Brief:
- Stockton University plans to lay off 14 faculty and seven staff members at the end of the 2026-27 academic year as it tries to rein in its deficit, the university’s president announced Tuesday.
- Leaders of the public New Jersey institution have not yet determined which positions they will cut, according to a community message from President Joe Bertolino, which the news site BreakingAC published in full.
- A union coalition held a rally Thursday to protest the cuts. “Our faculty and staff are the heart of Stockton University, not line items to be erased,” Tara Luke, a biology professor and president of the Stockton Federation of Teachers, said in a statement Wednesday.
Dive Insight:
Bertolino framed the workforce cuts as a “difficult but necessary step” to ensure the university “remains financially viable and well positioned for the future.” He pointed to prior efforts to address the institution’s financial challenges before resorting to layoffs, including a voluntary separation program that was recently rolled out.
The university is wrestling with a structural deficit of over $20 million, Bertolino said at a May board meeting. Those budget woes follow enrollment declines, with Stockton’s headcount sliding to 8,101 students this fall, a 10.8% drop since 2022, according to institutional data. That also represents a 6.1% decline from last year.
In July, Fitch Ratings revised Stockton’s credit outlook from stable to negative. Fitch analysts cited “worsening enrollment and operating pressures.
“Planned cost reductions and reserve use may provide limited relief, but improvement could be slow and execution risk remains elevated,” they wrote.
Over the long run, Stockton must navigate what Fitch analysts described as “a highly competitive New Jersey market, with a shrinking in-state student pool and rising affordability challenges.”
For now, the university still enjoys an “A” credit rating from Fitch, indicating a low probability of default. But the outlook revision signaled the possibility of a ratings downgrade at some point.
A news release from the three-union coalition touted student outcomes at Stockton, citing graduation rates above national averages and a high ranking for graduating low-income students.
“These outcomes are driven by hardworking faculty and staff who work directly with students every day to ensure their success,” said the unions in the coalition, the SFT, Council of New Jersey State College Locals and American Federation of Teachers New Jersey.
In response to the union’s news release, Stockton echoed Bertolino’s message in an emailed statement Thursday.
“We do not make this decision lightly,” the university said. “Our students remain at the center of our decisions, and we will continue working to protect the core academic and student experience while preserving Stockton’s ability to serve students for generations to come.”
