By Jared Fields, Editor in Chief

The ACU budget is taking a slight hit this year after university enrollment slipped by almost 100 students compared to last year.

ACU set an almost $95 million overall budget for the year, which is $3 million more than the university has this year.

Phil Schubert, executive vice president, said ACU has a $1.8 million contingency for just this sort of situation, and the difference is not noticeable to the average person on campus.

“I doubt it will be seen as significant or highly visible throughout the campus,” Schubert said. “We took little steps here and there to tighten up.”

Schubert added that after the $1.8 million contingency, the balance was manageable.

While the budget may be crimped, Schubert said service will not be affected.

“I feel confident there won’t be any noticeable shortcomings in service,” Schubert said.

The university has looked into saving money, and Schubert said the university has also brought in consultants to help.

“We’re working with some outside consultants to help us identify some thing that wouldn’t be apparent to us internally,” Schubert said.

The budget is not the only thing affected by lower enrollment numbers. Tim Johnston, associate vice president of enrollment management, is looking at solutions to raise enrollment just a couple of years after consecutive record- setting enrollment numbers.

“My responsibilities are anything that has to do with bringing students to ACU,” Johnston said.

Competing with other universities for the same students, Johnston said the university’s approach wasn’t quite right last year.

“Our approach did not prove successful,” Johnston said. “In most competitive markets, we found students in that market and our competitive response wasn’t as aggressive as other competitors.”

To respond, Johnston said the university will have to do a few things to satisfy its goals.

First, Johnston said the university will target an aggressive approach to students its interested in recruiting.

Using flag-ship programs to attract students is another method of bringing in students, Johnston said.

He said the other way to recruit is the old fashioned way: word-of mouth.

To recruit, Johnston said the university could begin with about 150,000 names before whittling them down to around 30,000 and going from there.

Johnston, Schubert and about a half-dozen others meet every Thursday morning to discuss topics like recruiting and budgeting. Today’s topic was upcoming freshmen.

While it sounds like business, Johnston referred to his job as more of a game.

And like a coach or any leader of a team, Johnston said he feels pressure to improve.

“I definitely know we need to respond,” Johnston said. “We feel it.”