Sometimes the classes are consumed by discussions about financial struggles, said Blair Webber, a sophomore graduate student.

“I’d rather not spend my class time pestering my teachers about the state of the school,” he said. “It’s clear to me that more sustainable for the school actually means more profitable. I feel appalled that the person being taken advantage of is me, with little in return.”

Administrators said they are focused on the long-term survival of the institution amid a difficult time in higher education. Universities across the country are grappling with declining enrollment and rising costs, locked in a constant competition to lure students away from competitors. In Massachusetts, more than 20 colleges have closed or merged at larger institutions over the past decade, and even at Lesley’s powerful neighbor, Harvard University, reported a smaller operating surplus this fall after a troubled university year.

At Lesley, a $100 million restructuring plan “it’s working as intended,” said President Janet Steinmayer, with the school cutting or consolidating academic programs, reducing staff and selling unused buildings.

Money is now flowing into the expansion of student facilities and Lesley’s commercial presence on Massachusetts Avenue. (It owns the former Sears building that houses new second outpost of Porter Square Books and famous udon outpost Yume Ga Arakaru has moved They hope those improvements — along with a new program to connect students with potential employers the day they get on campus — could help boost enrollment. This year, the number of new students increased by about 1,000, recovering some of the declines of the past decade.

“Our plan, which is designed to stabilize our finances, but also to give us that right footing, is working,” Steinmayer said. “But it works in a way that means it’s going to take time for everything to come to fruition.”

It will be a tough hill to climb: Lesley’s total revenue has fallen 40 percent between 2015 and 2022, according to publicly available data, eroding the school’s reserves and forcing it to rely more on tuition to stay afloat . Every year since 2017, Lesley has spent more of its endowment on operating expenses than the average institution, and last year, it allocated more than 8 percent of its roughly $180 million endowment to cover university expenses.

“It’s unsustainable,” said Gary Stocker, founder of College Viability, which tracks university finances. “Because at some point they’ll be used so much that they won’t have enough to work with.”

Many faculty members also have concerns. In a February letter, professors said the university “grossly” distorted enrollment and faculty attrition data to justify layoffs, and most professors repeatedly voted “no confidence” against Steinmayerthe board of trustees and the provost.

Meanwhile, the remaining professors are shouldering the workload of their laid-off colleagues, and another dozen professors have been moved from teaching courses to full-time administrative duties for various academic departments. Lesley now relies on several part-time adjunct professors to teach, two faculty members said, and the various duties long held by professors — department chairs, committee roles and curriculum design duties — that brought in payments extras fell by the wayside.

In an interview, Steinmayer said the change reflects the school’s effort to shift non-academic responsibilities from teachers and save money by combining administrative responsibilities.

Then there are ongoing union negotiations, which Jason Butler, an expressive therapies professor who resigned as department chair in December, said adds insult to injury.

The university’s latest contract proposal to the faculty union includes an annual cost-of-living increase of 1 percent, well below inflation in recent years. In the month since the contract expired, negotiations have made little progress, the union said. And earnings for the university’s highest-paid employees have risen accordingly tax filings. Steinmayer’s salary, for example, rose from $257,642 in 2020 to $589,949 last year.

“I don’t think anyone else in the institution would say there’s no need to make adjustments,” Butler said. “But the way these adjustments were made was difficult and problematic.”

The administration would rather focus on the future. Leslie recently debuted renovations to Reed and Burnham halls and announced a new $5 million scholarship fund for Maine students — signs that things may be changing for the better.

“We could all name things that we’re sad about that have changed the way we work personally,” said Stephanie Spadorcia, vice provost for education and former faculty member at Lesley. “But my peers generally look for the positives that we can anchor.”

However, some students, already frustrated and ready to protest, may not stay if Lesley returns further, said Fiona Doyle, a 25-year-old drama therapy graduate student, who said their classroom experience was “diminished” by fewer resources and the threat to the department’s accreditation.

“I have no active transfer plans,” Doyle said. “But it feels like the writing is on the wall.”

Diti Kohli can be reached at [email protected]. Follow a @ditikohli_.