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When tuition and fees make up 42 percent of the university’s income, enrollment is key. However the university’s budget is more complicated than that. Income is primary derived from tuition and fees and state funding. The single largest expenditure is for payroll.

Marilyn Fowlé, vice president of business affairs and finance,said,   “There is an allocation method to see how much the legislature will appropriate out of the pie depending on enrollment and other factors. Our chunk has shrunk because our size has stayed the same while others in the state have grown. Next year though, FY17, I was on the committee to make a recommendation for an increase and it was approved.”

Fowlé said this year the school’s chunk of the state’s pie was $3.3 million but next fiscal year it will be more than $5 million.

While state appropriations, like the Higher Education Assistance Fund, make up 26 percent of funds to the university, the funds are much like borrowing money from dad. Appreciative, nonetheless, but $20 in gas and gas only won’t fill an empty belly throughout the week. The portion of the budget that has the most leverage is from benefactors and donations.

Valarie Maxwell, director of budget and management, said, “We have a lot of local family support and benefactors,”

Fowlé said MSU depends on donations from families such as the Dillards and foundations such as the Priddy Foundation “which have been good as gold.”