OPEN FORUM
Michael Holbeck, vice president for finance and budget, told Students’ Association members about university funding and higher education at Monday’s meeting.
“If we look around higher education, it’s an interesting time,” Holbeck said.
He recalled the 2007 and 2008 financial recession, when less children were born and explained why this impacts higher education.
“So those less children born in 2007, 2008 are now less typical college age children here in 2025,” Holbeck said. “This is happening throughout the country. We knew it was coming.”
Across the country, schools within higher education are taking budget cuts or even shutting down completely because of the enrollment cliff. The University of Nebraska Lincoln is taking a $27.5 million budget cut, according to UNL’s website. Holbeck spoke on how the recession has affected SDSU.
“We really saw the data coming,” Holbeck said. “One of our first things here was (we) implemented a strategic enrollment management plan back in 2017.”
The strategic enrollment plan included marketing, the scholarship grid, retention and investments. Holbeck highlighted the benefit of having three out of the five largest freshman classes in SDSU history in the last three years leading up to the recession.
Holbeck said SDSU ended fiscal year 2025 in “a solid financial position,” and he looks forward to fiscal year 2026.
Following Holbeck’s address, members of Helping Everyone Reach Optimal Health (HEROH) approached the stand. The club’s objective is to promote overall wellbeing in students, regardless of their age or health status. The members of HEROH believe it would be beneficial for SA to bring back an ex-officio position for their club.
“We believe that having an ex-officio for HEROH would be a great connection between the senate and HEROH,” prospective HEROH ex-officio, Rose Nett, said. “We believe that this connection can help us get it (HEROH’s club objectives) out to the student body, and especially the campus and community.”
The written request for HEROH to be considered for an ex-officio position on the SA board was passed.
NEW BUSINESS
Amendment 25-1-A was up for debate at Monday’s meeting. This would amend SA’s bylaws to change spending limits on campaigns for senators. The budget is currently $2500, and the amendment would decrease the amount to $500 for presidential and vice presidential candidates and $100 for senatorial candidates.
The goal for this change in budget, according to Senator Lydia Stein, is to better the student body.
“There has been research that shows that (if) you lower campaign spending limits, you get a higher voter turnout, as well as more people interested,” Stein said.
SA will vote on this amendment at next Monday’s meeting.
