Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[Hibush]

Wahoo wants something other than doom and gloom on a thread that is explicitly about pointing to doom and gloom. Well, let's give that a go since these are interesting times.

...
Neither do I want rose-tinted glasses nor gloom-and-doom.

I want objective, un-filtered info as much as possible.  If there is expert opinion I want the whole opinion and not a cherry-picked excerpt.

Thanks for the explicit check in on what makes this interesting to you.

We have two popular gloom-and-doom threads, dire straits and doomed humanities.  I attribute their popularity to three attractions. One is shadenfreude, another is to gauge whether institutions or disciplines on hard times resemble ours so that we can get out while the getting is good, and last is to see whether we are avoiding the pitfalls that are causing others to succumb.

Is that about right?

[AmLitHist]

Traditionally community colleges do well during economic downturns.  We'll see what my place looks like by fall. In the 2008+ recession, we were bursting at the seams, until enrollment started declining around 2012-13.  (Part of that downturn, no doubt, was related to institutional problems and reputation at my particular CC.)

[tuxthepenguin]

This could be an opportunity for faculty who are experts in online education to get jobs somewhere distant from where they live and have those jobs be good enough jobs.  While many institutions will go back to their on-campus instruction as soon as possible, other institutions may find their students ask for additional online education.  The Consortium for Online Humanities Instruction is likely to pick up additional institutional members and perhaps be more open to faculty who aren't affiliated with the on-campus instruction.  By focusing on offering a larger curriculum to augment on-campus programs, the faculty teaching in these programs are likely to have better jobs than with the for-profits that have been closing.

In this vein, I think the current situation will advance online learning at all levels by about at least a decade.

It might advance the incorporation of online elements into traditional classes by a decade (no need for a binary view of education at this point, which really hasn't been accurate for a long time). It is more likely to set back the move to online-only instruction by a decade by giving students a bad experience.

[ciao_yall]

Traditionally community colleges do well during economic downturns.  We'll see what my place looks like by fall. In the 2008+ recession, we were bursting at the seams, until enrollment started declining around 2012-13.  (Part of that downturn, no doubt, was related to institutional problems and reputation at my particular CC.)

At our CC, the improving economy led to declining enrollment. The resulting financial problems exposed a lot of dysfunction which had been bought off during the flush years.

The institutional problems had always been there. But as they say, when the tide goes out, you learn who has been swimming naked.

[marshwiggle]

This could be an opportunity for faculty who are experts in online education to get jobs somewhere distant from where they live and have those jobs be good enough jobs.  While many institutions will go back to their on-campus instruction as soon as possible, other institutions may find their students ask for additional online education.  The Consortium for Online Humanities Instruction is likely to pick up additional institutional members and perhaps be more open to faculty who aren't affiliated with the on-campus instruction.  By focusing on offering a larger curriculum to augment on-campus programs, the faculty teaching in these programs are likely to have better jobs than with the for-profits that have been closing.

In this vein, I think the current situation will advance online learning at all levels by about at least a decade.

It might advance the incorporation of online elements into traditional classes by a decade (no need for a binary view of education at this point, which really hasn't been accurate for a long time). It is more likely to set back the move to online-only instruction by a decade by giving students a bad experience.

It will be interesting to see how that plays out. The fact that basically all faculty have been forced to develop some familiarity with online platforms undercuts a lot of resistance on the basis of lack of exposure to the tools. But as you say, this will point out all of the problems on the student end due to factors including bandwidth limits, personal technology budgets, etc. in addition to the pedagogical issues.

[Wahoo Redux]

Wahoo wants something other than doom and gloom on a thread that is explicitly about pointing to doom and gloom. Well, let's give that a go since these are interesting times.

...
Neither do I want rose-tinted glasses nor gloom-and-doom.

I want objective, un-filtered info as much as possible.  If there is expert opinion I want the whole opinion and not a cherry-picked excerpt.

Thanks for the explicit check in on what makes this interesting to you.

We have two popular gloom-and-doom threads, dire straits and doomed humanities.  I attribute their popularity to three attractions. One is shadenfreude, another is to gauge whether institutions or disciplines on hard times resemble ours so that we can get out while the getting is good, and last is to see whether we are avoiding the pitfalls that are causing others to succumb.

Is that about right?

I would also like peeps to include anything that might, say, change the course of events and strive to save our colleges.

Whenever anyone, mainly me, posts something to that effect it seems to irritate or even make other posters angry.  I find this strange.

I am a bit flummoxed by the defeatism of academics. Dread is one thing, lack of resilience is another.  I suspect it is the nature of our individualistic jobs that we don't think of ourselves as a cohesive whole.  United workers have changed a lot of things, for the good and the bad...somehow we lack that perspective. 

[spork]

There are too many sources of uncertainty to try to predict the effect on colleges and universities.

[. . .]

There are loads of other changes that can happen to the economy and to society as a result. It's way too early to say. There's no reason to be pessimistic or optimistic.

I recommend looking at power laws and exceedance probability curves. Car crashes are low frequency events but they are statistically near-certain among a large enough group of drivers over a sufficient period of time. Potential harm? Ranges from scratched paint to death. A lot of work usually goes into prevention of the latter. As for the former, not so much.

I happen to be employed at a university that has had twelve years since the 2008 recession to work out how to best mitigate the effects of the next financial catastrophe. It did nothing but hire consultants at a cost of a few million dollars to provide recommendations that were intuitively obvious to the most casual observer, and those recommendations were never implemented. So now determining the likeliness of the university's survival is basically a coin toss. There are probably many other universities in the USA in the same situation. 

[polly_mer]

My agenda is to get as many people as possible to get out of looming and entirely predictable bad situations, like the known small business failure rate.

Yep, some people will get to have a fabulous TT position with a personally desirable mix of teaching, research, and service.  That number is fewer all the time compared to the number of people who are qualified for those positions.

I came here just now to post  Predicting the pandemic's long-term impact on higher education.

[tuxthepenguin]

There are too many sources of uncertainty to try to predict the effect on colleges and universities.

[. . .]

There are loads of other changes that can happen to the economy and to society as a result. It's way too early to say. There's no reason to be pessimistic or optimistic.

I recommend looking at power laws and exceedance probability curves. Car crashes are low frequency events but they are statistically near-certain among a large enough group of drivers over a sufficient period of time. Potential harm? Ranges from scratched paint to death. A lot of work usually goes into prevention of the latter. As for the former, not so much.

I happen to be employed at a university that has had twelve years since the 2008 recession to work out how to best mitigate the effects of the next financial catastrophe. It did nothing but hire consultants at a cost of a few million dollars to provide recommendations that were intuitively obvious to the most casual observer, and those recommendations were never implemented. So now determining the likeliness of the university's survival is basically a coin toss. There are probably many other universities in the USA in the same situation.

There are definitely some that will be pushed over the edge by this. On the other hand, there are some that will be saved by it. They'll be able to market themselves to high school seniors for whom the job market has suddenly vanished. They'll draw older students without a college degree, people that want another certification, and people that want a grad degree to boost their chances. They'll accommodate students that want to live at home, provide them with good financial aid options, raise money for scholarships, etc. There's nothing about this crisis that implies institutions of higher ed are going to be hurt.

[dismalist]

The specific effect of this health cum economic catastrophe is to impose costs on everybody immediately. This is clearly bad for higher education.

However, one can say that a temporary negative economic shock by itself is good for higher education, temporarily, of course, and after the health problem gets fixed. During a negative shock when it's hard to find a job, people go to study. When they are finished, and the economy has recovered, these new students will not be replaced.

All this overlaid on a longer term decline in the college age cohorts, and perhaps a temporary decline in foreign students.

[apl68]

We have two popular gloom-and-doom threads, dire straits and doomed humanities.  I attribute their popularity to three attractions. One is shadenfreude, another is to gauge whether institutions or disciplines on hard times resemble ours so that we can get out while the getting is good, and last is to see whether we are avoiding the pitfalls that are causing others to succumb.

Is that about right?

Well, speaking as somebody who long ago left the employ of a university, but still cares about the world of higher education, I read this thread mainly to get an idea of the sorts of challenges that institutions of higher ed face as they try to adapt to the changing world and stay in business.  This thread, and its predecessor at the old fora, has been very educational in that respect.  Which makes it frustrating during those periods when it comes to be dominated by certain recurring arguments by posters whose positions were already made clear to all quite some time back. 

I appreciate the recent posts above that are trying to grapple with the effects that the epidemic crisis might have on higher ed--on all of them, whatever the POV expressed.  They give us food for thought. 

If it's not too much to ask, does anybody have any thoughts re my question above, about what sorts of institutions besides HCBUs might try to make a case for why they deserve special consideration in any allocation of federal bailout funds?  I'm betting that somebody here might have some useful perspectives on that.

[apl68]

I came here just now to post  Predicting the pandemic's long-term impact on higher education.

Thank you.  Very interesting article.  Makes a good case for how the epidemic is likely to reinforce certain trends. 

I also liked the Henry James quote at the beginning.  It's refreshing right now to see an article quoting some literary figure besides Camus!

[Wahoo Redux]

My agenda is to get as many people as possible to get out of looming and entirely predictable bad situations, like the known small business failure rate.

Yep, some people will get to have a fabulous TT position with a personally desirable mix of teaching, research, and service.  That number is fewer all the time compared to the number of people who are qualified for those positions.

Laudable.

Now aggressively acknowledging that there is no silver bullet or perfect solution, what can we do to change the course of events?

[Hibush]

If it's not too much to ask, does anybody have any thoughts re my question above, about what sorts of institutions besides HCBUs might try to make a case for why they deserve special consideration in any allocation of federal bailout funds?  I'm betting that somebody here might have some useful perspectives on that.

Historically, those most successful at getting legislative consideration in this kind of situation (i.e. "Never waste a good crisis") are are in first, and are the loudest at saying "I need money!"

A lot of intellectuals waste time, energy and access developing justifications and thoughtful explanations of why they need money. But in a crisis, the fact that you are ever present and ever pressing is what matters. The consequences of that disparity in approach has long-lasting effects that include a lot of the challenges we see today in higher education funding and the financial condition of some of our students.

I expect the for-profits to be "nimble" enough to mount a respectable effort. State universities in some places will be late to the table, and at the state-capitol rather than the US Congress, so the returns will be lower. But many of those have enough influence to get some concessions.

The small privates in dire financial straits?

[dismalist]

Lobbying is is not a promising path for the many. For the few, just call yourself "Kennedy Center" and get reams of cash. :-)