Amid the influx of a large and diverse freshman class and the decision on Loyola’s financial probation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools fast approaching, University President Tania Tetlow sat down with the staff of The Maroon to discuss the status of the university for the upcoming year.

Financial Probation

In December of 2018, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges placed Loyola on financial probation in order to monitor the university’s budget which had accumulated a significant amount of debt in previous years.

The board of the association will vote on whether Loyola is in the clear financially or should undergo another year of probation in December, according to Tetlow, who said she has “cautious optimism” about the university’s financial situation.

Tetlow explained that it is incredibly unlikely the university will lose its accreditation from the association.

“It’s sort of like when you need a doctor to do surgery on a broken wrist and he has to tell you you could die,” Tetlow said. “But no, I am not worried about it.”

Tetlow said the university finished the 2018-2019 school year with a balanced budget and projects the same for the upcoming school year, with higher revenue. However, she said the university is in need of more sources of revenue or a reorganized budget, considering that the debt is structured to increase by $1 million annually.

“We need more room for air,” Tetlow said.

The new freshmen class

The incoming first-year class is the most diverse in the history of Loyola, with 55% of freshmen being students of color and 32% being first-generation college students. Tetlow said the 840-person class was somewhat surprising and exciting.

“This was a really brutal year for liberal arts colleges, for Catholic schools, for universities like ours nationally, a lot of them went backwards,” Tetlow said. “And on a year we were put on probation we were up 10% over last year. That is an amazing thing.”

Tetlow expressed excitement about the new class but said that because of the university’s tight financial situation, Loyola has to get creative about finding ways to allocate resources to the new incoming freshmen.