Campus-wide budget cuts have affected all areas of the campus this year, including the College of Business.

Gary Koppenhaver, interim associate dean of business, said the core classes all undergraduate business students must take are 4 percent larger than they were last year.

The upper level undergraduate classes also have been increased by 2.5 percent due to the college’s $287,486 budget cut.

Prior to the budget cuts, the College of Business already had the largest classes on campus, averaging 68 students per undergraduate course.

And they grow larger each year.

“The rise in class sizes can be traced back to the budget cuts,” Koppenhaver said. “And students are worried about that – as they should be.”

Class sizes are not the only part of the business college affected by the budget cuts, he said.

Faculty and college of business staff also have been dismissed due to the cuts.

“Our communications to the outside have been affected,” Koppenhaver said.

“We also believe that some of our alumni relations have been affected due to the budget cuts and cuts of faculty and staff members.”

The College of Business had preliminary plans last spring to raise the grade point average requirement for the management information systems degree program from a 2.5 to a 2.75, but the budget cuts did spur the department’s decision to put that into affect this fall, he said

“The 2.75 grade point average for MIS was planned before the budget cuts were announced,” Koppenhaver said. “But the budget cuts did have a great affect on when we implemented that, and it fits in with trying to keep our allocation of resources in the best places.”

Some business students said the decrease in faculty will adversely affect the university.

“I can definitely see how the cuts affect recruiting top-notch faculty,” said Michael Whaley, senior in management information systems.

Students have noticed the impacts of the budget cuts, said Travis Sullivan, junior in management information systems.

“They haven’t brought any additional faculty in, and yet the program is almost six times larger than when it started,” he said. “The budget cuts don’t help that any.”