In June of 2019, Eastern Washington University suffered from a $3.6 million budget cut. At the end of the current 2020 school year, Eastern is projected to suffer from a $3.5 million budget cut. That is a total of $7.1 million in budget cuts in just two years. Many local media sites attribute the cut in funding to the drop in student enrollment, presumably information provided by the university. According to EWU's Institutional Research Common Data Sets, the grand total of students has actually increased by 28 students between the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 school years. Although the total number of students has increased, the retention rate of first year students continuing to their second year has been dramatically decreasing for the past 3 years. going from 76.2% students returning for a second year in 2016 to a lower 70.1% in 2018.

What is truth in all this chaos? Why is funding being cut to crucial programs? Why are faculty positions being left unfilled making professors left to pick up the extra work as admistration continues making money hand over fist?