Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[Stockmann]

French major gets an au revoir at UALR


Drale used the 2020 benchmark threshold of a full-time equivalent student to full-time equivalent faculty ratio of 12, and a student semester credit hours to full-time equivalent faculty ratio of 200. In 2019, the French program was at a "low" student-faculty ratio of 8-to-1 -- falling to 7-to-1 this year -- and the student semester credit hour ratio in 2019 was 123-to-1, while the ratio fell in fall 2022 to 108.5-to-1.

Eliminating the program "seems like a wise move to me," said trustee Sheffield Nelson of Little Rock.

Providing quantitative information in the absence of context is clearly a good way to persuade trustees.

I think French and German as foreign languages are really taking a hit in the US since a lot of people in those countries speak fluent English, and our non-anglophone economic and academic partners work in Spanish or Mandarin.

With the partial exception of Spanish, which is after all the native language of a now massive population within the U.S., the European languages all seem to have lost their cachet.  I think there's a widespread perception now that they're all just dead white-people stuff.

This is what happens when you have an employment focus for higher ed.  If you don't need French to get a job, why need French?  C'est la vie

In all fairness, the global importance of French has probably not been lower at least since Napoleon.
I don't know if French and German are suffering similar declines as majors, but German has a more promising future than French as a major world language.

[dismalist]

French major gets an au revoir at UALR


Drale used the 2020 benchmark threshold of a full-time equivalent student to full-time equivalent faculty ratio of 12, and a student semester credit hours to full-time equivalent faculty ratio of 200. In 2019, the French program was at a "low" student-faculty ratio of 8-to-1 -- falling to 7-to-1 this year -- and the student semester credit hour ratio in 2019 was 123-to-1, while the ratio fell in fall 2022 to 108.5-to-1.

Eliminating the program "seems like a wise move to me," said trustee Sheffield Nelson of Little Rock.

Providing quantitative information in the absence of context is clearly a good way to persuade trustees.

I think French and German as foreign languages are really taking a hit in the US since a lot of people in those countries speak fluent English, and our non-anglophone economic and academic partners work in Spanish or Mandarin.

With the partial exception of Spanish, which is after all the native language of a now massive population within the U.S., the European languages all seem to have lost their cachet.  I think there's a widespread perception now that they're all just dead white-people stuff.

This is what happens when you have an employment focus for higher ed.  If you don't need French to get a job, why need French?  C'est la vie

In all fairness, the global importance of French has probably not been lower at least since Napoleon.
I don't know if French and German are suffering similar declines as majors, but German has a more promising future than French as a major world language.

Strangely, these things seem to come in threes:

In the 19^th century, post Napoleon, the English, French, German triad was useful -- English for commerce, French for diplomacy, and German for science. In the second half of the 20^th century, all this got done in English, the single lingua franca.

In the 21^st century, as has been pointed out, we have English, Spanish, and Mandarin. Which of these languages thrive and which decline depends upon the generation of new ideas and how many people already speak it. That sets up Spanish on a path of long-term decline, but it has a large  number of speakers so it would take a long time. It's safer to say that it won't become a lingua franca. That leaves a competition between the West, using English, and China, using Mandarin. I'm betting on the West. English will prevail as lingua franca.

[Stockmann]

I don't think Spanish will decline in the US for the foreseeable future, in fact it has yet to peak in terms of number of speakers. Globally, yes, and even population numbers don't help that much as a number of Spanish-speaking countries have below-replacement fertility rates, including Mexico and Spain. Aside from English, German is the only Western language that might gain any traction outside of where it is already the majority language or at least that of a substantial minority, in Europe at any rate.

[Puget]

Aside from English, German is the only Western language that might gain any traction outside of where it is already the majority language or at least that of a substantial minority, in Europe at any rate.

I'm very curious why you think German would gain traction? At least in my field, even the Germans don't use German for science-- they mainly publish, give talks, and even teach in English. And if from what a gleaned from a quick search, it appears there are more French than German speakers worldwide (thanks to colonialism largely).

A bit of anacdata from a recent conference trip to Belgium, a country with very interesting language politics -- over dinner with some of the Belgian scientists, who were all the Dutch (i.e., Flemish) areas, they explained that the Dutch schools require a second language and nearly all the Dutch speakers pick English as their second language to study in school, not French, or the official 3rd language of Belgium, German. The French schools do not require a second language for some reason, and the French speaking regions are falling behind economically. Almost no one speaks German outside the small region that Germany was forced to give Belgium in reparations (hence the official 3rd language). Of course, this is the Flemish perspective, but it is clear English is ascendant.

[dismalist]

Same in economics, and has been for a long, long time.

In Sweden, everybody is taught English. In the Netherlands, English is now the second official language!

In the early 20^th century Swedish economics, which remains great, was written in or first translated into German. It's been English since the middle of the 20th
century.

The French government does not require a second language of pupils so that the French language has less competition!:-)

[kaysixteen]

As long as Chinese writing remains what it is, it is nigh onto impossible to imagine its ever becoming a lingua franca.

[dismalist]

As long as Chinese writing remains what it is, it is nigh onto impossible to imagine its ever becoming a lingua franca.

No worries! "Pinyin is a system where writers would type out the transliteration of the Chinese word using our familiar Roman letters on a QWERTY keyboard."

That's from the internet, but I've heard of this long before. I've also heard that Cantonese is a lingua franca at Caltech!

Difficulty matters, of course, as does size of population using the language, but the clincher determining growth is changes in usefulness. If many innovations are made in a certain language, it will become more desirable to learn that language. And, of course, once a large share of the world population speaks a certain language, it will be more likely that innovations will first be expressed in that language.

[spork]

As long as Chinese writing remains what it is, it is nigh onto impossible to imagine its ever becoming a lingua franca.

Go to Southeast Asia. Spoken is different from written.

And yes, I know there are multiple Chinese languages.

[ciao_yall]

Many different Chinese dialects and they don't all use the the Chinese characters the same way. Mandarin is to Roman Italian what all the other dialects are to Venetian, Ligurian, etc.

The question is, how many Chinese people learn English? And how many people outside of China learn English?

Mandarin is the world's most widely spoken first language, followed by Spanish. English is the most widely spoken language as a first or second. (I read this a few years ago an am too lazy to fact check myself.)

[mythbuster]

I work with many Chinese- including Mainland, Taiwanese, and Chinese American raised. All will tell you that English has a flexibility and ability to create new vocabulary that Mandarin and Cantonese do not. The example my friends use is the term estuary or river delta. In Mandarin you would have to write out- the place where the river meets the sea. And the set Mandarin vocabulary (tones) do NOT do well with 21st century concepts, tech terms, and abstract ideas. This is why they adopt so many English technical terms.
   So while I'm sure lots of people will still speak Mandarin, it will not be the language of international business and ideas because of how it is structurally limited.

[spork]

To get this thread back on track, no foreign language program is going to help a small financially struggling college survive, because language instruction in the USA is designed to make students hate trying to learn other languages. No high school graduate chooses a college because of its gen ed 101/102 first year language requirement.

Some students at Holy Names U. (Oakland), which is closing next month, are transferring to Dominican U. of California (San Rafael).  The latter has about 9,000 students, but has posted annual deficits since 2018, including a loss of $6 million in FY 2021, the most recent year for which data is available.

[apl68]

To get this thread back on track, no foreign language program is going to help a small financially struggling college survive, because language instruction in the USA is designed to make students hate trying to learn other languages. No high school graduate chooses a college because of its gen ed 101/102 first year language requirement.

Some students at Holy Names U. (Oakland), which is closing next month, are transferring to Dominican U. of California (San Rafael).  The latter has about 9,000 students, but has posted annual deficits since 2018, including a loss of $6 million in FY 2021, the most recent year for which data is available.

To the extent that niche language programs do help some schools, it's not an area with growth potential.  The number of students a school has majoring in a given language isn't likely to go up.  In a best-case scenario it might stay about the same, and the school will have to look elsewhere to try to increase its enrollment.

Alma Mater still offers several languages, though not as much as what the modern languages department offered at its peak when my mother taught there.  I hope they at least find it worth their while to keep offering them.

[Stockmann]

Aside from English, German is the only Western language that might gain any traction outside of where it is already the majority language or at least that of a substantial minority, in Europe at any rate.

I'm very curious why you think German would gain traction? At least in my field, even the Germans don't use German for science-- they mainly publish, give talks, and even teach in English. And if from what a gleaned from a quick search, it appears there are more French than German speakers worldwide (thanks to colonialism largely).

A bit of anacdata from a recent conference trip to Belgium, a country with very interesting language politics -- over dinner with some of the Belgian scientists, who were all the Dutch (i.e., Flemish) areas, they explained that the Dutch schools require a second language and nearly all the Dutch speakers pick English as their second language to study in school, not French, or the official 3rd language of Belgium, German. The French schools do not require a second language for some reason, and the French speaking regions are falling behind economically. Almost no one speaks German outside the small region that Germany was forced to give Belgium in reparations (hence the official 3rd language). Of course, this is the Flemish perspective, but it is clear English is ascendant.

I should've written additional traction - English will remain the dominant Western language but there's not actually much room for expansion for it, it's already the second language of choice in every Western country where it's not the primary language, ahead of other national languages. Among Western languages, I think German will increase in importance, primarily at the expense of French - French has more speakers, but the German-speaking world is Europe's economic powerhouse, and outside of Europe (incl. overseas Departments of France) and Quebec, the French-speaking world is basically destitute - excluding Europe and North America, the French-speaking world is poorer than the Spanish-speaking world, for example.

[apl68]

The University of Arkansas partnership with the University of Phoenix has been voted down by UA's Board of Trustees.  The UA President could technically go ahead without the Board's okay, but seems reluctant to do so.


https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/ua-system-board-votes-against-university-of-phoenix-deal/527-43ad4a82-adcf-4d31-8e84-670853950260


In fuller reports I've seen (behind paywalls), there's a bit about Phoenix's past problems, and a lot about how this is supposedly just what UA needs.  We forget that most of the general public doesn't know, or has already forgotten, what most academics know about Phoenix's crooked and sleazy history.  When they hear about promises to bring in $20 million in new taxpayer-free revenue to UA, and augment UA's online education offerings--everybody knows that online education and computers and stuff is where it's at today, right?--jumping at this offer could easily sound like a no-brainer.  Fortunately a slim majority of the Board apparently realized that the whole complicated set of deals involving Phoenix didn't pass the smell test.  I really, really hope that the deal will end up being off for good, and that some other college (or ideally, none at all) will snap up this supposed deal of a lifetime.

[dismalist]

The University of Arkansas partnership with the University of Phoenix has been voted down by UA's Board of Trustees.  The UA President could technically go ahead without the Board's okay, but seems reluctant to do so.


https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/ua-system-board-votes-against-university-of-phoenix-deal/527-43ad4a82-adcf-4d31-8e84-670853950260


In fuller reports I've seen (behind paywalls), there's a bit about Phoenix's past problems, and a lot about how this is supposedly just what UA needs.  We forget that most of the general public doesn't know, or has already forgotten, what most academics know about Phoenix's crooked and sleazy history.  When they hear about promises to bring in $20 million in new taxpayer-free revenue to UA, and augment UA's online education offerings--everybody knows that online education and computers and stuff is where it's at today, right?--jumping at this offer could easily sound like a no-brainer.  Fortunately a slim majority of the Board apparently realized that the whole complicated set of deals involving Phoenix didn't pass the smell test.  I really, really hope that the deal will end up being off for good, and that some other college (or ideally, none at all) will snap up this supposed deal of a lifetime.

Some posters might be surprised to learn that many so called non-profit universities operate divisions or programs that are intended to make a profit, and do make profits, big profits. Harvard on-line is a prime example, but I know of others.

It's difficult to figure out from the link what is going on here. There's a link inside the link

https://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/144181/ua-system-board-votes-against-university-of-phoenix-deal?utm_source=enews_042423&utm_medium=email&utm_content=breaking-news&utm_campaign=newsletter&enews_zone=3815&oly_enc_id=4913H7594489J8I

that has more information, but still leaves one breathing heavily.

Looks like the idea is for UA to buy Phoenix, via a holding company, financed by borrowing, in order to acquire an income stream -- Phoenix's profits.

One of the objections of the board seem misplaced -- the reputation  of Phoenix is irrelevant. Change the name to UA, and have UA run it. That would be a normal corporate takeover!

Another objection is that UA's holding company cannot control the Phoenix board. Hell, kick out the board and appoint your own! I don't know why that couldn't be done.

I don't like opacity to lure students, but Harvard does it. So why not UA?