Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[dr_codex]

U Maine system moves toward unified accreditation of all campuses in response to declining enrollment and lack of state funding:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/01/28/maine-university-system-moves-ahead-unified-accreditation.

Maine will be interesting to watch. I've been surprised that they didn't make a push to stronger online programs, tbh (I'm from there, although I didn't go to college there, so I'm familiar with some of the challenges students face in campus selection). ALL of my nieces and nephews are in UofM schools, and they face significant hardships finding course offerings, internship opportunities, etc., even in common fields. The differences between South and North there are so marked, I'm interested to see how they handle this.

We are watching Maine closely, too. Sharing compliance positions system-wide could be a real savings. Of course, we would probably wind up like Georgia, barely saving anything.

[spork]

U Maine system moves toward unified accreditation of all campuses in response to declining enrollment and lack of state funding:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/01/28/maine-university-system-moves-ahead-unified-accreditation.

Maine will be interesting to watch. I've been surprised that they didn't make a push to stronger online programs, tbh (I'm from there, although I didn't go to college there, so I'm familiar with some of the challenges students face in campus selection). ALL of my nieces and nephews are in UofM schools, and they face significant hardships finding course offerings, internship opportunities, etc., even in common fields. The differences between South and North there are so marked, I'm interested to see how they handle this.

The reality is that some of the campuses should be eliminated.

[apostrophe]

Frank Lloyd Wright's School of Architecture at Taliesin will close

https://archpaper.com/2020/01/taliesin-to-close/

According to a statement by the Foundation, the decision to close the esteemed institution was made because the school "did not have a sustainable business model that would allow it to maintain its operations as an accredited program."

!!

I read the article and learned nothing, really. The problem must be money--but in what way?

One of the problems has been that the place has been driven by acolytes of Wright and adherents of his impractical organizational style. Tt has been difficult to maintain an institution that way sixty years after the charismatic leader's death. Wright's buildings and organizations both require an incredible amount of expensive maintenance, so the operating costs are far higher than conventional ones.

Here is a clip from a 2005 NY Times article that gives some relevant background:

Academic recognition came only in 1987, when the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture received accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission, a regional organization. In 1997 the National Architectural Accrediting Board also approved accreditation, enabling the school to grant architectural degrees.

But some people in the architecture world say that despite the accreditation and Wright's accomplishments and fame, Taliesin West has lost its way.

"It's an architectural theme park," said Reed Kroloff, dean of the architecture school at Tulane University, adding that "the rigid adherence to Wright's system is destroying the institution." Graduates of Taliesin, Mr. Kroloff said, "have to struggle to place themselves in the larger architectural community."

Thanks for the additional information. I imagine it is very difficult to balance fidelity to FLW's vision with (more) modern training standards. I'm less sympathetic to the problem of the buildings being expensive to maintain--that's true of a lot of great historic architecture--but if it's only half the problem it's a pity that someone couldn't have worked harder on the other half.

[apl68]

The Chancellor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock is seeking permission from the Board of Trustees to begin a process of "retrenchment."  It's serious enough that they are seeking permission to lay of tenured faculty in some cases.

https://talkbusiness.net/2020/01/ua-little-rock-chancellor-sends-letter-of-intent-to-trustees-to-begin-retrenchment-process/



https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2020/jan/31/red-ink-on-books-ualr-looks-to-trim-bac/


Enrollment is down to 9,600 from 13,000 a decade ago.  UALR is now the state's fifth most popular public campus, down from the second place it long occupied.  Their budget is at least $10 million in the hole.

[Hibush]

IHE has an interview with Robert Zemsky, one of the authors of the book, The College Stress Test.

Their assessment of 2000 colleges puts 60% in the sound-finances category, 30% in the be-careful category and 10% in the dire-financial-straits category. They are looking at the market as a whole, and see that distribution as expected in any industry rather than a crisis in higher education.

Here are two conclusions that we have discussed repeatedly on this thread:

Colleges and the universities in the middle of the country face greater risks than colleges in New England;
and the best indicator of risk for public four-year institutions is consistently declining state appropriations.

The sentiment here may have been that things look bleaker in New England than the middle of the country, so the underpinnings of their perspective would be good to know.

The interview also gets into whether parents and students should understand and make decisions based on a schools finances. The answer is that the information is easily available but very rarely considered. The only school data prospective students and their parents look at regularly are rankings. (Milton Friedman would be sorely disappointed that so many people fail to abide by his definition of rationality!)

[tuxthepenguin]

The Chancellor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock is seeking permission from the Board of Trustees to begin a process of "retrenchment."  It's serious enough that they are seeking permission to lay of tenured faculty in some cases.

https://talkbusiness.net/2020/01/ua-little-rock-chancellor-sends-letter-of-intent-to-trustees-to-begin-retrenchment-process/



https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2020/jan/31/red-ink-on-books-ualr-looks-to-trim-bac/


Enrollment is down to 9,600 from 13,000 a decade ago.  UALR is now the state's fifth most popular public campus, down from the second place it long occupied.  Their budget is at least $10 million in the hole.

According to the article, they had already handled $6 million of that $10 million, and a majority of the rest ($2.3 million) came from adjustments to the accounting used for grants and contracts. That leaves only $1.7 million of "real" unanticipated deficit, which frankly isn't that much of a shock for a university the size of UALR - roughly $175 per student.

It causes genuine problems when you start applying the chainsaw method to get your budget back in the black. In extreme cases, it can lead to further tuition losses great enough to offset any claimed savings, and in most cases will offset some of the savings. Obviously, they need to get the budget under control. This is something that has to be done over a period of several years, where you let things die (like faculty positions) a natural death.

[spork]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/us/belmont-university-christians-barred-watkins-college.html

[Aster]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/us/belmont-university-christians-barred-watkins-college.html

"The provost of Belmont, Thomas Burns, told Watkins students at a meeting on Wednesday that all of Belmont's faculty and staff members were Christian and that only Watkins professors who were Christian could join the university.

"We do not hire people who are not Christian, so the ones who are not Christian would not be eligible to work at Belmont," Mr. Burns said, according to a YouTube video of the meeting. "But that's just part of who we are."

Yeah, I don't see that going over well with the general public.

"Facing a backlash and the potential exodus of faculty, J. Kline, the president of Watkins, sent an email to employees on Saturday announcing an abrupt shift in policy. Mr. Kline wrote that non-Christian faculty and staff members would, in fact, be considered for employment at Belmont.

"Because we recognize current Watkins employees could not control nor anticipate merging with a faith-based institution, it has been determined that special consideration will be given to current Watkins employees regardless of their position of faith," Mr. Kline wrote.

Damage Control Enabled.

[wareagle]

Oh, sure.  They might be considered.  But I'd bet real money that non-Christians won't actually be hired.  Or, there might be a token one or two who get hired for appearance's sake.

[tuxthepenguin]

Oh, sure.  They might be considered.  But I'd bet real money that non-Christians won't actually be hired.  Or, there might be a token one or two who get hired for appearance's sake.

It's a Christian university. Seems natural that they'd want Christian faculty. That's the whole reason parents are willing to pay insane tuition rates.

[Wahoo Redux]

"Facing a backlash and the potential exodus of faculty

These people must have a radically different job market than the one I am familiar with. 

[spork]

Bethune-Cookman University, again:

https://diverseeducation.com/article/165827/.

[Hibush]

A (free) CHE article assesses the new poaching-enabled recruitment NACAC allows. In short, it used to be prohibited for member schools to recruit students once they had committed to a school. Now they can.

About a third of admissions offices surveyed intended to send transfer incentives to students they had admitted but who enrolled elsewhere. About a quarter will try to get admits who have put a deposit elsewhere, but not matriculated. Presumably they will emphasize students who need smaller financial aid packages.

That tactic could really hurt schools in dire financial straits if their higher-paying students are being poached. The students might be susceptible to that poaching if they start to realize the rocky finances of the institution.

[apl68]

Oh, sure.  They might be considered.  But I'd bet real money that non-Christians won't actually be hired.  Or, there might be a token one or two who get hired for appearance's sake.

It's a Christian university. Seems natural that they'd want Christian faculty. That's the whole reason parents are willing to pay insane tuition rates.

Belmont abandoned their denominational affiliation some years back.  That seems often to be a step along the way to secularization.  Merging with these secular art schools is probably going to turn out to be another step in that direction, although that might not have originally been the intention.  If Belmont's not careful, they could end up with a situation like polly observed at Super Dinky College, where the school falls between two stools--not distinct enough to attract students who really want the religious affiliation, but still a turn-off to prospectives who don't want it.

[tuxthepenguin]

Oh, sure.  They might be considered.  But I'd bet real money that non-Christians won't actually be hired.  Or, there might be a token one or two who get hired for appearance's sake.

It's a Christian university. Seems natural that they'd want Christian faculty. That's the whole reason parents are willing to pay insane tuition rates.

Belmont abandoned their denominational affiliation some years back.  That seems often to be a step along the way to secularization.  Merging with these secular art schools is probably going to turn out to be another step in that direction, although that might not have originally been the intention.  If Belmont's not careful, they could end up with a situation like polly observed at Super Dinky College, where the school falls between two stools--not distinct enough to attract students who really want the religious affiliation, but still a turn-off to prospectives who don't want it.

Absolutely. I won't pretend to be an expert on Belmont, but I've always had the impression that "Christian" was why students enroll there. They just don't have the academics to convince students to go there rather than the publics in the state. If you give up your primary recruiting tool, you better be getting something good in return, and I don't see that.