NIU’s College of Business will face the challenge of a 2 percent university-wide budget reduction for the next fiscal year and a 50 percent increase in freshmen enrollment in the college.

David Graf, dean of the College of Business, said he is concerned about the increase in freshmen enrollment.

With about 4,000 students in the business school, Graf said there likely would be waiting lists for classes.

“We didn’t reduce the number of classes from this summer to last,” Graf said. “We had a worse problem turning in the fall and spring.”

People usually try to register in the first 10 minutes of their registration times to get what they need, Graf said.

“We are not be able to accommodate all students who are transferring their major from one department to another,” Graf said. “We are selecting our students who are on track.”

Although Graf said the College of Business will have more sections and classes, he also said there will be cutbacks in advising.

Advisers will have 10.5-month contracts now, he said, instead of 12-month contracts.

The number of students coming into the college is projected according to those who are enrolled in UBUS 310, Graf said, which is the first required upper-level course for business majors.

“Right now, accountancy, management and marketing all have lots of students, and those are the largest departments,” Graf said.

Last year, the college was able to accommodate all the students in classes such as MGMT 346, business communication, and MGMT 468, strategic management, by their number of hours and if they met the prerequisites to get into the courses, Graf said.

“Management has the most service classes in upper division, and they are indeed the tightest in terms of resources because they also have the largest number of majors at the same time, so they get impacted twice,” Graf said.

Rated seventh in the United Sates, the accountancy department also will be impacted as there are many more students who are trying to get into the program, Graf said.

To accommodate, the department may have to adjust the GPA, Graf said.

“We have to hold it to a 3.0 for the last few years, but the pressure of the numbers of students coming in requesting accountancy may require that we move the GPA to a 3.2, unless we get more resources to teach those courses,” Graf said.