Southern Accent How does Southern use your money? A quick glance at the university’s budget

Amanda Blake Managing Editor

Southern Adventist University received $35.2 million in net tuition and fees and $13.4 million in room and board in the 2022 fiscal year. But where does that money go?

In an interview with the Accent, Doug Frood, vice president for Financial Administration, explained how Southern uses students’ money.

First, he said money included in a high-level university budget such as Southern’s is fungible, meaning it’s all part of the same pot. It’s impossible to create a line from revenue drawn from specific student expenses to specific operating expenses.

Additionally, student expenses are not the university’s only source of revenue.

“One of the big things students should grasp is your tuition and room and board, especially directly, do not pay the entire cost of this institution,” Frood said. “Fortunately, we have a church that’s supporting us; we have other things going on that help fill in the gap. Otherwise, tuition would be a lot more expensive.”

For example, in 2022’s fiscal year, beginning June 1, 2021, and ending May 30, federal grants contributed $8.2 million and church appropriations $7 million to the university’s total revenue.

“The church appropriations, the Southern Union’s support of us, for a lot of students, they wouldn’t even grasp that. It’s 7 million bucks — that’s a lot,” Frood said. “ … This group of states has made a commitment … to help defray the cost of this institution, hopefully making it more affordable for those who are coming.”

At the end of the fiscal year, the university barely broke even, with total revenue from current operations equaling $77.2 million and total operating expenses equaling $77.1 million, according to Frood. At the end of 2021’s fiscal year, the university had a nice gain, with total revenue from current operations equaling $72.4 million and total operating expenses equaling $71.3 million.

“People may wonder, ‘Well, what do you have to make a gain for?’” Frood said. “Well, stuff goes wrong. Fortunately, we’ve had positive years. This year, we’ll probably be a little bit in the hole. So, those years will make up for the fact that this year may be a little negative. All companies, for-profit or not forprofit, have to make a little bit of, quote-on-quote, ‘bottom-line profit’ in order to cover things that come up that you don’t see coming.”

This bottom-line profit is what allowed the university to share a significant amount of COVID-19 government relief funding with students during the pandemic.

“A lot of what you got to see during COVID and our response to it was because we knew that we had been blessed essentially for the seven years and that it was for such a time as this,” Frood said.

Frood emphasized that most of Southern’s operating expenses benefit people through four expense categories: salaries, benefits, non-student wages and student wages. Last fiscal year, those four expenses together equaled $45.7 million, very close to 60% of the university’s total operating expenses.

Frood continued to address specific fees students pay and what they look like on the budget. Parking citation fees go into a general, departmental budget and not Campus Safety’s budget.

Recently the curfew hours for Southern Village residents changed from 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday through Thursday, according to an email sent by Administrative Dean Lisa Patterson to Southern Village residents and their deans.

The email also stated what has not changed, including the time that mixed company needs to be out of the apartments and the times room check occurs. Friday curfew will also remain the same, and residents at Southern Village are still expected to sign in after 11 p.m. if they return to their apartments after room check has commenced.

Another change mentioned in the email is the leave approval process. According to the email sent out by Patterson, all leaves for Southern Village will now automatically be approved, but the guidelines for approved leave locations and age of host stay the same.

“Even though your leave is automatically approved,” stated the email to Southern Village students, “it is your responsibility to make sure it still falls within