Correction: This Northern Star article incorrectly spelled the name of Chris McCord, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Scot Schraufnagel, director of Graduate Studies for the Political Science Department, said the political science graduate program cannot sustain the 3.5 student to instructor ratio because the “faculty is stretched too thin.”

The eight-month budget impasse has caused NIU to hold off on hiring, so requests for an increase in faculty for graduate programs has been put on hold. The impasse is due to a lack of agreement on Gov. Bruce Rauner’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget between legislators and the governor. Without a finalized budget, state appropriations cannot be given which is about 26 percent of NIU’s budget.

Schraufnagel said the ideal ratio for the graduate program is two students for every instructor.

Provost Lisa Freeman said a decrease in staffing and a reduction in costs has become more common on campus because as instructors have resigned, their positions have been left vacant and the duties of the former positions have been spread across current faculty and staff.

Since 2010, the political science graduate program teaching staff has decreased from 18 to 15 and the program has rejected six student applications out of 24 for fall 2016 due to insufficient staffing, Schraufnagel said.

Bradley Bond, dean of the Graduate School, said admissions is controlled at the department level, but an increase in staff has to be approved by Chris McCord, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Nick Karonis, Computer Science Department Chair, said he has expressed the need to increase staff to McCorde, however, McCorde cannot hire more staff until the NIU budget is established.

“Like many departments on campus, we could benefit from … hiring more,” Karonis said.

Karonis said if the computer science graduate program continues to grow, which Karonis thinks it will, then the department will need more instructors in the upcoming terms.

The computer science graduate program has been increasing rapidly and grew from 112 students in 2012 to 193 students in 2013. By 2014, enrollment grew to 260 students.

In that time, McCorde permitted the hire of two new instructors in order to accommodate the swell in enrollment and meet the demand, Karonis said.

Courses with programming have 20 to 30 students per instructor and for non-programming classes, there are 35 to 40 students per instructor.

“We have gone higher [in the number of students per instructor] frankly because of necessity,” Karonis said.

Karonis said as the ratio of students per instructor increases, the instructor does not get paid more.