Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[polly_mer]

Marlboro College (VT) will merge with University of Bridgeport (CT): https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/University-of-Bridgeport-Marlboro-College-to-14137002.php.

This makes no sense at all.

Part of making no sense includes: "Plans call for students taking courses on both campuses, which are roughly two hours apart."  Why?  Why would you make students take classes two hours apart?

Edited to add:  I didn't even know about

For the benefit of readers whose New England geography is fuzzy, the physical gap between Marlboro and Bridgeport includes the state of Massachusetts.

Reference: https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/friday-fragments-164

[archaeo42]

Marlboro College (VT) will merge with University of Bridgeport (CT): https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/University-of-Bridgeport-Marlboro-College-to-14137002.php.

This makes no sense at all.

Part of making no sense includes: "Plans call for students taking courses on both campuses, which are roughly two hours apart."  Why?  Why would you make students take classes two hours apart?

The only possible way I could see this working is if courses are fully online or students decide to spend a semester/year at either place. But this is really weird.

[polly_mer]

Marlboro College (VT) will merge with University of Bridgeport (CT): https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/University-of-Bridgeport-Marlboro-College-to-14137002.php.

This makes no sense at all.

Part of making no sense includes: "Plans call for students taking courses on both campuses, which are roughly two hours apart."  Why?  Why would you make students take classes two hours apart?

The only possible way I could see this working is if courses are fully online or students decide to spend a semester/year at either place. But this is really weird.

It gets weirder the more articles I read.  The comments on a IHE article (http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/07/25/marlboro-college-merge-university-bridgeport?utm_source=ihe&utm_medium=editorial-site&utm_content=breakingnews) are pretty entertaining. 

The details at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/07/26/marlboro-seeing-peers-around-it-close-plans-merge-university-bridgeport are also weird.  For example, if engineering students wanted an immersive liberal arts experience, then they likely would have enrolled at a different institution.  As it is, engineering students everywhere in the US take classes in the arts and humanities as part of general education.  What would make Bridgeport special in a bad way is insisting on spending a semester at a rural place for no discernible benefit to the students.

[spork]

My initial thought was that UB's takeover of Marlboro was actually a Unification Church-directed business investment. But it turns out that the Unification Church's ties to UB no longer exist: https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/UB-Unification-Church-split-approved-by-all-sides-13902023.php.

Full disclosure: nearly twenty years ago I was offered a job at UB and didn't take it (had a competing offer that was more attractive). At the time UB had, for its size and reputation, a huge international student enrollment, presumably all paying full tuition for the privilege of a U.S. college education. I was impressed with the physical plant, the academic program I would have been part of, and the administrators I met -- some of whom were Unification Church members.

[ciao_yall]

Marlboro College (VT) will merge with University of Bridgeport (CT): https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/University-of-Bridgeport-Marlboro-College-to-14137002.php.

This makes no sense at all.

Part of making no sense includes: "Plans call for students taking courses on both campuses, which are roughly two hours apart."  Why?  Why would you make students take classes two hours apart?

The only possible way I could see this working is if courses are fully online or students decide to spend a semester/year at either place. But this is really weird.

Or a daily shuttle so students can take a day's worth of classes at the other campus? But... what if they miss the bus?

[spork]

Marlboro College (VT) will merge with University of Bridgeport (CT): https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/University-of-Bridgeport-Marlboro-College-to-14137002.php.

This makes no sense at all.

Part of making no sense includes: "Plans call for students taking courses on both campuses, which are roughly two hours apart."  Why?  Why would you make students take classes two hours apart?

The only possible way I could see this working is if courses are fully online or students decide to spend a semester/year at either place. But this is really weird.

Or a daily shuttle so students can take a day's worth of classes at the other campus? But... what if they miss the bus?

The distance is too far for a daily back-and-forth commute -- 2.5 hours one-way, assuming no traffic. Marlboro does have on-campus housing. But why acquire a campus that far away for students to study at for just a winter break or a semester or two? Something that big will never be fully utilized year-round as a conference or retreat site. Marlboro Music is only seven weeks long in the summer. How much of Marlboro's endowment is restricted? I can see UB pillaging the unrestricted portion and selling off the physical campus, like a company that's been the victim of a leveraged takeover. But I still say the merger makes no sense if the plan is to use the Marlboro campus as an extension of UB's academic operations.

[secundem_artem]

In my own limited experience, hiring an administrator with fallback to tenured faculty, happens more than it should. I'm in complete agreement that the option to revert to faculty is put out there precisely because people would otherwise not leave tenured positions, but I should also add that it is very difficult to make a lateral move from a tenured faculty position to another tenured faculty position. Going into admin, with the fallback of reverting to faculty, is one path to making a lateral faculty move with tenure, with an intentionally lucrative brief stint as an administrator. Then there are those people, with cheesy degrees, and never ever had a faculty position nor a real research agenda, like that clown that ran University of Akron for a couple of years, and then joined the faculty with an unfairly high faculty salary, after he was chased out of the admin role. At my own uni, I deal with a glorified academic/student support administrator who has wheedled their way onto the faculty and is allocating more and more time to the role of faculty (spending time on research, teaching a 1/1 and some years a 1/2). I know exactly how that story will end.

When did you meet my Dean?

[glowdart]

Marlboro College (VT) will merge with University of Bridgeport (CT): https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/University-of-Bridgeport-Marlboro-College-to-14137002.php.

This makes no sense at all.

Part of making no sense includes: "Plans call for students taking courses on both campuses, which are roughly two hours apart."  Why?  Why would you make students take classes two hours apart?

The only possible way I could see this working is if courses are fully online or students decide to spend a semester/year at either place. But this is really weird.

Or a daily shuttle so students can take a day's worth of classes at the other campus? But... what if they miss the bus?

Through mountains. In New England winters which last for six months. Up a highway that has always resembled a badly paved parking lot when I've had the displeasure.

UofB is 37% residential students. How do they expect any of those students to up and spend time in Vermont?

I cannot fathom what they are thinking.

[polly_mer]

I cannot fathom what they are thinking.

More comments on the IHE articles indicate:

• Both institutions have endowments in the mid-30 million dollars, which means Bridgeport just more than doubled its endowment.
  
  
• Since Marlboro College has been filling its budget gap recently from unrestricted funds in the endowment, it's possible that Marlboro College's endowment could still have unrestricted funds available to help fill Bridgeport's budget gaps.
  
  
• Marlboro College has some very nice property that could be sold for a pretty penny or rented in a way to give a nice income.  After all, Marlboro has fewer than 200 students, many of whom likely could be relocated to have courses on both campuses.
  
  
• The combined board structure will give only 15% of seats to Marlboro.  That seems like setting up to have Bridgeport run for Bridgeport's benefit.
  
  

[apl68]

Cincinnati Christian: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Dire-Financial-Straits-/246735

Since 2015, the leaders of Cincinnati Christian University have made bold moves to try to reverse falling enrollment and flagging finances. The university spent big money on athletics, laid off staff and faculty members to cut costs, and revised its academic mission.

But instead of revitalizing the institution, those decisions are among the many that have pushed Cincinnati Christian toward the brink of financial ruin and put it at risk of losing its accreditation. The university has been hemorrhaging money even as it owes millions in debt it can't cover. At the same time, an effort to bolster enrollment has failed spectacularly, with double-digit drops in student retention and graduation rates

Nothing inherently wrong with athletics (thought a lot times it ends up of wrong), but NAIA football is not likely a money maker, and investing in athletics at the expense of academics is a good way to the death spiral (not to mention to governance issues)

Pulled this link to the story off Twitter. No paywall for now:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Dire-Financial-Straits-/246735?key=lZNp9FHkDfv6nyFEhWZrDUP3TWbE0z77QLb3gsyHC2ozlrjbb2cRryMhOlbj2yKaTWc1azVoVlQ3ZF95RVJXTjJuOE9pb3JmQzcxNUZmek9YQXV2MzcyYW8yVQ.

Sounds like the school that declined to merge with them dodged a bullet!

Apparently they made the mistake of choosing for their leadership the kind of incompetent serial entrepreneur who ruins everything he does, yet somehow always manages to hype himself up as a genius and convince a new batch of investors to support his next venture.  I feel sorry for students and alumni who have seen their school ruined by ridiculous wild turnaround efforts like this.

[glowdart]

I cannot fathom what they are thinking.

More comments on the IHE articles indicate:

• Both institutions have endowments in the mid-30 million dollars, which means Bridgeport just more than doubled its endowment.
  
  
• Since Marlboro College has been filling its budget gap recently from unrestricted funds in the endowment, it's possible that Marlboro College's endowment could still have unrestricted funds available to help fill Bridgeport's budget gaps.
  
  
• Marlboro College has some very nice property that could be sold for a pretty penny or rented in a way to give a nice income.  After all, Marlboro has fewer than 200 students, many of whom likely could be relocated to have courses on both campuses.
  
  
• The combined board structure will give only 15% of seats to Marlboro.  That seems like setting up to have Bridgeport run for Bridgeport's benefit.
  
  

Yes - but none of that addresses "plans call for students taking courses on both campuses," when said campuses are 2.5 hours apart on a good day and when 63% of students commute to UofB. Commuter students don't have a spare five hours+ a day to sit in traffic on 91 to get to class.

[polly_mer]

I cannot fathom what they are thinking.

More comments on the IHE articles indicate:

• Both institutions have endowments in the mid-30 million dollars, which means Bridgeport just more than doubled its endowment.
  
  
• Since Marlboro College has been filling its budget gap recently from unrestricted funds in the endowment, it's possible that Marlboro College's endowment could still have unrestricted funds available to help fill Bridgeport's budget gaps.
  
  
• Marlboro College has some very nice property that could be sold for a pretty penny or rented in a way to give a nice income.  After all, Marlboro has fewer than 200 students, many of whom likely could be relocated to have courses on both campuses.
  
  
• The combined board structure will give only 15% of seats to Marlboro.  That seems like setting up to have Bridgeport run for Bridgeport's benefit.
  
  

Yes - but none of that addresses "plans call for students taking courses on both campuses," when said campuses are 2.5 hours apart on a good day and when 63% of students commute to UofB. Commuter students don't have a spare five hours+ a day to sit in traffic on 91 to get to class.

I was unclear. 

What are the Powers that Be thinking?  They are seeing a way to sink more slowly with extra money.

Why are some administrators saying they are planning to really merge the schools to have students on both campuses?  Because those administrators don't really believe that the two institutions have different missions, they don't understand the complicated lives of current students, and those administrators probably come from backgrounds where they cannot fathom how engineering education works in practice with a very structured curriculum that would require significant revision to put all the liberal arts courses in one semester.

I don't recall any of the administrators suggesting students take classes on both campuses during the same term; that situation was raised here as being impractical and it remains impractical.

What was raised as an administrator idea to blend the campuses was students spending a term on the other campus.  My bet is those administrators really believe that could happen because those folks are still picturing students living on campus or just slightly off-campus in group housing.  Those administrators are not picturing people living at home and commuting into even their home campus. 

Numbers won't convince those administrators because they simply can't fathom how the college-going experience is different for an adult with a life that includes college classes instead of being a full-time college student who may have a part-time job.  People in that latter situation could get a ride with a packed backseat of belongings and go a couple hours away for a few months and get a ride back.  People in the former situation, even if full-time college students by course load, aren't likely to be able or willing to move for a few months to check some boxes. 

One of the hardest parts of getting lower SES folks solidly into pipeline for the parts of STEM where I reside is getting the students to believe they have to spend summers doing undergraduate research or other full-time internships instead of working in the family business or other employment strictly for the money.  I can't imagine trying to convince those students that they should pay extra money to live for a semester in rural nowhere taking liberal arts classes to become better rounded and then those students still have to take internships/research experiences to get the necessary experience to get a good job after graduation, which also may mean time away from home at additional cost.

[polly_mer]

An analysis of Alaska by CHE (full-text link from Twitter): https://www.chronicle.com/article/Here-s-Why-Alaska-s/246779?key=lZNp9FHkDfv6nyFEhWZrDSYuwd8H0CKnTZMYKkfx8BfMPmrsv16UAEI4R3yu_kQYYlllYjhhV2VmZ0F2TzNmOG1YYjNWTmNhTERRYlItQzFLb203X3ZUb1FaVQ

On the Fairbanks campus, the six-year graduation rate is 39.2 percent. At Anchorage, it's 24.9 percent, and at Southeast, it's 19 percent. Retention rates for first-year students are 64 to 75 percent. Nationally, the average six-year graduation rate at public universities is 60 percent, and the average retention rate at institutions with open-enrollment policies is 62 percent.

[polly_mer]

More from Alaska where the Board of Regents just voted to start the process of planning to transition to one accredited institution instead of three independently accredited institutions: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/07/31/alaska-regents-intense-debate-over-response-state-cut-reveals-internal-rifts

[spork]

Wheeling continues to implode - president and senior VP given the boot: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/08/05/wheeling-president-placed-leave-next-chapter-chaotic-year.