Arizona State University plans to lay off at least 200 non-tenure-track faculty members in the coming months, a move that could push some lecture-style classes to enrollments of 1,000 students, The Arizona Republic reported today.

Arizona State employs nearly 1,000 “faculty associates,” a term that describes a number of non-tenured positions. Tenure-track faculty members will not be laid off, and the university said it had no plans to limit enrollment or eliminate majors.

University officials said they anticipated at least $25-million in state budget cuts, in addition to the $30-million in cuts they have already made. Arizona’s three public universities receive about a quarter of their budgets from the state.

Amid students’ concern that larger class sizes will hinder faculty-student connections, university officials said the cuts were an unfortunate result of the struggling economy.

“Everyone feels terrible,” Virgil Renzulli, the university’s vice president for public affairs, told the newspaper. “We are in tough economic times. This is not something we want to do.” —Caitlin Moran