Major cuts at SUNY Potsdam

SUNY Potsdam, roiled by declining enrollment and a multi-million-dollar deficit, has announced significant cuts to its academic program.

Enrollment has dropped 43 percent since 2010. Full- and part-time faculty have also declined, but not in proportion to student numbers. College President Suzanne Smith said the institution is running a $9 million annual deficit.

Fourteen programs, most of them in the arts, will be phased out over the next few years.

Potsdam is certainly not the only Upstate college struggling for survival. Cazenovia College closed this year. Other SUNY schools and liberal arts colleges are buffeted by the same trends, a pattern that could have a crushing impact on small college towns.