Whitman College laid off 10 people this week amid a roughly $3 million dollar budget shortfall. That’s according to internal emails from Whitman president Sarah Bolton, obtained and reviewed by NWPB.
In an email from early June, Bolton said the budget shortfall comes from challenges with recruiting students, especially those who can contribute more to the cost of their tuition. Whitman’s tuition is over $66,000 for the upcoming school year, though the college states that approximately 95% of students qualify for merit- or need-based aid.
“The increasing pressures on higher education from both demographic and federal policy changes are creating an ever-more competitive environment for recruiting students,” Bolton wrote. “As a result of all of these factors, we know that we need to plan for budgetary reductions both for next year and for the longer-term.”
Bolton laid out the college’s approach to saving $3 million in the fiscal year 2026. The largest line item was “staffing and compensation reductions,” which included laying off staffers; leaving some vacant positions unfilled; and only giving 1% raises to most staffers earning more than $70,000 a year, instead of the 2% raises that had been scheduled. The salaries of cabinet members and the president were also reduced by 2% and 10%, respectively.
According to Bolton’s most recent email, the planned layoffs were completed yesterday.
“We cannot provide a public list of the positions eliminated,” she wrote. “However, I can share that restructuring of work has touched every area of the college — both through the elimination of a dozen vacant positions over the course of the past year and through the layoffs that took place this month.”
Noah Leavitt, the college’s liaison for community affairs, was one of those laid off yesterday. He said he was asked to hand over his laptop and office key in a meeting that lasted about 10 minutes.
Leavitt, who’s been working at the college for nearly 20 years, wrote on LinkedIn: “Whitman is facing a dire multimillion dollar budget shortfall and this week is laying off staff from many units in an attempt to deal.”
His position had focused on building relationships between the college and the businesses, people and nonprofits of the Walla Walla Valley.
“I was just so surprised because Whitman, in its strategic plan, talks about wanting to create support for its students to have a life of meaning and purpose,” Leavitt said in an interview with NWPB. “And it also says that it’s a priority to connect with the Walla Walla community. Yet it eliminated a full-time position that focuses on those two strategic priorities. So it’s hard to make sense of that.”
Kris Surovjak, Whitman’s senior associate director of admission, was also laid off. In a Facebook post yesterday, they said: “I believe in normalizing the sharing of awkward/challenging news… It was a disappointing experience on many levels, but I have great support.”
Heidi Pitts, a spokesperson for the college, confirmed that 10 people had been laid off.
In an email to NWPB, she echoed the reasons that Bolton had shared internally: The college is grappling with falling enrollment numbers coupled with an increasing amount of financial aid awards, as well as inflation and national policy changes that have made it more difficult for international students to come to the United States.
Those familiar with Whitman College know that it has an endowment of roughly $800 million, and that it also spent the past few years fundraising $30 million for new student apartments.
When asked why the college couldn’t use its endowment to ease the budget crisis, Pitts said that a significant portion of the college’s operating budget already comes from the endowment’s investment income.
“Drawing from the base endowment funds to cover operating cost gaps is neither wise for the long-term health of the college’s finances nor, in many cases, even possible,” she wrote. “The endowment is composed of over 1,000 individual funds, most of which are tied to legally binding gift agreements designating the fund for a specific use.”
The largest use of the endowment, Pitts said, is to provide scholarships for students. She said the average “sticker price” paid by Whitman students has fallen several years in a row; in 2023, the college pledged to meet the full financial need of any student from Washington.
“No one at Whitman wanted to undertake layoffs — our faculty and staff are the people who make our mission possible,” Pitts wrote. “However, our top priority is to fulfill our educational mission to our students and provide them with the financial aid, healthy and safe living situations, and other essential support that will ensure their success.”