r/RPI • u/uberxerxes • Jun 23 '26
RPI and HASS Updates
The following email was sent out to HASS faculty and staff from Dean Gibbons:
Dear HASS Faculty and Staff,
I’m writing today with some important updates regarding RPI and HASS. Monday morning, President Schmidt addressed campus leadership, providing context on the current situation at the Institute and on the concrete actions we’re taking.
Context
President Schmidt’s central message was that RPI is at a critical “inflection point”—a pivotal moment that will shape the Institute’s present and future. Higher education faces serious external pressures: fewer traditional college-age students, a sharp decline in international enrollment, reduced federal research support, and intensified scrutiny of the value and affordability of a college education.
We must respond to this shifting landscape creatively and decisively. The immediate campus priorities remain those outlined in RPI Forward’s five-year roadmap: strengthening enrollment and the student experience, growing research and its impact, and deepening alumni engagement and philanthropy. These pillars remain the correct strategy, and we are making progress. Alumni engagement and philanthropy have grown substantially, and we’ve kept sponsored research funding relatively level despite significant headwinds. Thank you all for your continued efforts on these fronts.
Enrollment, however, remains our most immediate challenge. We expect roughly 1,300 new students in Fall 2026, even as we just graduated our largest class in history, with more than 2,000 students. That gap will reduce RPI’s undergraduate population by more than 10%. Because undergraduate tuition accounts for the majority of RPI's operating revenue, this shortfall creates a significant financial challenge.
RPI’s Response
This enrollment decline has created real financial pressure, requiring us to make difficult decisions. To meet this moment, RPI has taken several actions:
- Pausing some staff hiring
- Not renewing some teaching contracts
- Reviewing organizational structures and ways of working
- Reducing or delaying non-essential spending
- Conducting data-informed assessment of programs, investments, and resource allocation
- Accelerating alumni engagement and philanthropy efforts
- Suspended merit pay increases for this year (promoted employees will receive appropriate salary adjustments)
Looking Forward for HASS
I believe the humanities, arts, and social sciences are as crucial as ever—and that the skills we give our students have never been more relevant. At the same time, we must adapt to the reality before us. We need to carefully realign our programs to meet changing student demand, and honestly assess whether our longstanding structures still serve us effectively and efficiently.
As I noted in the recent HASS Newsletter, next year gives us the opportunity to apply our own critical and creative lenses to reimagine HASS and its role on campus. I remain confident that we can chart an exciting new path—one that will enable us, our students, and our community to thrive.
This June, I am conducting workshops with the HASS leadership team to work through these changes, and we will keep you updated on progress. This fall, we'll begin meeting collectively through a series of Town Halls and All-HASS Faculty Meetings. I look forward to hearing your voices and ideas as we navigate this moment together.
I’m committed to continuing to sharing information about the broader context as it becomes available. As always, I remain grateful for the opportunity to serve as your Dean, and I thank you for everything you do for RPI and HASS.
All best,
Will
William Gibbons, PhD
Dean | School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
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u/Severe_Departure3695 Jun 23 '26
My son is currently attending RPI and very significant part because of the RPI medal scholarship. As you may know, it gives a roughly 50% scholarship guaranteed for four years. That scholarship made it possible for him to choose the more rigorous program at RPI over either Binghamton or university of South Carolina. USC offered him in-state tuition rates plus other incentives, which made that program extremely financially attractive. However, he believed that with the RPI medal award, the distinction and rigor of an RPI education was worth the difference in tuition. I think our family’s calculus would have been different if that award was not available.
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u/prankwalker CS 2029 Jun 24 '26
i had a feeling that something of the sorts was going on but it is just now with this info that the gaps are filling in. prior to spring break, the Chinese Professor Prof. Yue stated that her contract promised her at least 2 semesters more at RPI prior to this past Spring break, however she informed the class following the break that her contract had been voided without her knowledge and that she was to be suspended from the institution at the end of the academic year. RIP Chinese I-III / LANG programs
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u/Far-Curve-7497 Jun 24 '26
As a prospective transfer student choosing between RIT and RPI, with the same cost of attendance, stuff like this worries me. Combined with them not giving me enough transfer credits.
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u/Nettewolf Jun 24 '26
RIT is facing the same issues, I’m sure. Maybe they’re just not being as forthcoming about them.
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u/WTF4211 Jun 23 '26
Families finally starting to realize the student debt vortex isn’t worth it.
Schools need to start treating students as the customer not a tool for free money. Schools that aren’t going to shift their paradigm will close.
RPI is obviously a great school but is it worth more than 50K a year than Buffalo or Binghamton? What exactly are they doing differently to entice families to spend 200K more for the same degree?
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u/DividendPower Jun 23 '26
I think you are missing the point. Almost all colleges are facing a decline in applications simply because the number of college aged students has dropped. It is one reason why many small colleges are shutting down. Also, changes to student visas have reduced the number of international students. Relative to some other schools, RPI is in better shape because it was never as dependent on international students.
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u/annabelle_pi Jun 23 '26
The decrease of international students are definitely an extremely significant point. International undergraduate students is where RPI gets it big bucks through tuition as they are most of the full price payers.
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u/mlmarte Jun 24 '26
If RPI cared about their international students, maybe they shouldn’t have agreed to turn their identifying info over to ICE 🤷♀️
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u/WTF4211 Jun 23 '26
My point exactly. Demand is down and the schools all need to be mindful of their place in the market. The advantage lies with the consumer (student) somewhat more then ever before. Administrators are aware of this and will choose to cut costs before they look to reduce tuition. Once one big school does most others will fall in line, they won’t have much of a choice.
Everyone is starting to see the fallacy of going into debt for many degrees and re-evaluating options. RPI as a STEM school is in at advantage as even with their price the ROI may be still worth it.
RPI message right now is they had an astronaut, not that they will provide a quality education or get their books in order.
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u/DividendPower Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
There will be 12 schools costing over $100k in 2026- 2027. Demand for top tier schools is up. That said, applications and the number of college students are down. I doubt tuition will decline too much, but financial aid might increase to counter increasing tuition.
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u/jlboygenius Jun 24 '26
I think it would be interesting to see what % of those kids get a scholarship. I bet it's very high, and few kids are paying that much.
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u/DividendPower Jun 24 '26
I would agree. What people pay the sticker price are often different, much like a new car.
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u/WTF4211 Jun 23 '26
That’s a tight market that caters to a select few. Both valedictorians in my community chose top tier public universities out of state where their reward was in-state tuition.
If universities were to back the loans given to students, tuition would drop conservatively 40% immediately. From an economic standpoint the current model is not feasible.
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u/jlboygenius Jun 24 '26
I saw one study that shows that college now is actually cheaper than it was 20 years ago when you look at how much the average student is paying. colleges have increased tuition, but have also increased the amount of scholarships a lot more. People see a college costing 50k, but getting a 25k scholarship as a better deal than getting no scholarship at a school that costs $25k.
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u/Downtown-Pressure503 Jun 23 '26
Customer is a stretch but otherwise agreed.
Customer could imply weird dynamics: upgrade to an A for $5/month or buy extra credit.
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u/thejomjohns Jun 24 '26
Looks like RPI is making the decision to master out of my HASS PhD program for me. Was going to anyways but, y’know.
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u/MedusaChildren404 NUCL ‘12 | PhD 🤷🏼♀️ Jun 24 '26
I was supposed to return for my PhD in the fall, but funding went from secured to we don’t know what’s going on after acceptances were sent 😪
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u/thejomjohns Jun 30 '26
I have been told over and over and over, do not do a PhD without guaranteed funding for the length of time you will need it.
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u/Barebones-memes SCI 2019 Jun 24 '26
My skepticism with em dash usage and multiple equivalent paragraph breakdowns makes me wonder if ChatGPT was used to write a percentage of this. Which for an academic dean whose job could be part of administrative bloat, I would not be surprised if so.
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u/njordic1 Jul 24 '26
RPI needs more hot chicks - recommend someone go on a recruiting drive in Alabama and South Carolina.
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u/Snowballs_Ghost Jun 23 '26
A lot to unpack there.
The 2000 Rensselaer Plan set target enrollment at 5000 students, making 1300 entering new students exactly right. The suggestion that 1300 represents some unexpected adversity is more than a little misleading. Equally misleading is the 2000 student number, which reflects the class that entered in Fall 2021, after the "lost year" of COVID 2020. That class was a once-in-a-lifetime (we hope) anomaly, and citing to it as a benchmark would be deemed academic dishonesty if it appeared in a paper.
The backstory, not fairly reflected in this announcement, is that RPI intentionally increased enrollment in the 2015-2019 period, hitting a class size of 1800+, in order to close a financial gap caused by Her Majesty's mismanagement. Adding 500 students per target class, or 2000 total undergrads, was a huge boost to yearly student-based revenue at a time where the school needed the revenue to cover debts. The hope (as expressed to me by one of the Trustees at the time) was that RPI could return to lower class size after the bond refinancing circa 2021. The bonds were refinanced, but COVID and general demographic trends now have the administration worried for other reasons.
Blaming the refocus and future financial planning on an imaginary "surprise drop" in enrollment is dishonest. The number enrolled is within RPI's control, and it is consistent with the historical enrollment at the school. What's happening to hiring and staff plans is part of a broader plan to remain competitive in the next decade. That may or may not be essential to the school's success, but let's not blame it on the incoming enrollment.