Students Going From Closing Institution to Closing Institution

[polly_mer]

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/colleges-closing-permanently-coronavirus-pandemic has commentary from two students who left now closed Robert Morris University in Springfield, IL for just closed MacMurray College, also in IL.  These students are now looking for a third college at which to finish their degrees.

Last year, the story at CHE was the focus on half a million students displaced by for-profits closing in the past five years: https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/20190404-ForProfit

This spring, when a plan was floated to close three of the four campuses in the Vermont State College system, one of the recurring comments was that would put many students in the boat of finding a third college at which to finish after recent S(mall)LACs closing in the region.

I have no answers, but thought I'd mention the situation of attending multiple failed institutions as becoming less rare for students.

[TreadingLife]

Interesting. At some level, that's just cosmically bad luck to have chosen both of those institutions. Welcome to 2020, the year that sucks and keeps on sucking.  But I agree, this might become a more frequent problem for students seeking out small and not very selective liberal arts colleges.

Pay no attention to the man (and the lack of net tuition revenue) behind the curtain!

[Aster]

One of my colleagues works at a SLAC that has itself been benefiting from absorbing students from closed SLACs. At times, up to 10% of the student population has been made up of refugees from recently closed universities.

This has been very good for business at my colleague's SLAC. Revenues and enrollments are robust and healthy.

I am not sure how sustainable this economic model is, as I keep thinking that eventually one might run out of SLACs. But I also suppose that the students are still around, and they have to go college somewhere.

[marshwiggle]

One of my colleagues works at a SLAC that has itself been benefiting from absorbing students from closed SLACs. At times, up to 10% of the student population has been made up of refugees from recently closed universities.

This has been very good for business at my colleague's SLAC. Revenues and enrollments are robust and healthy.

I am not sure how sustainable this economic model is, as I keep thinking that eventually one might run out of SLACs. But I also suppose that the students are still around, and they have to go college somewhere.

This sounds like an example of natural selection. The places that have some distinctiveness and are well-managed financially will survive (and potentially thrive), while the places that have nothing that makes them stand out and have long standing financial problems will close. Many institutions closing doesn't mean they will all diappear; merely that there are more of them than society needs, and so a new equilibrium will take a while to achieve.

[pigou]

But I agree, this might become a more frequent problem for students seeking out small and not very selective liberal arts colleges.

I.e. students who can't get into other schools and maybe would be better off not wasting their money on tuition.

Colleges that are more desperate for cash will take anyone with a pulse who can get student loans. Well, they're also more likely to fail once applications dry up. More selective colleges, on the other hand, can respond by becoming less selective to maintain the size of their incoming class.

[Parasaurolophus]

Wow. And: ouch. It stands to reason, but I hadn't thought of it.

[apl68]

I've been wondering lately whether there are any figures anywhere regarding how many colleges closed during the Great Depression.  Was it very many?  Or did the great majority of colleges that were around at that time somehow manage to make it?

[polly_mer]

I've been wondering lately whether there are any figures anywhere regarding how many colleges closed during the Great Depression.  Was it very many?  Or did the great majority of colleges that were around at that time somehow manage to make it?

Many of the tiny colleges at risk for closing now were founded before the Civil War.  Therefore, they did survive the Great Depression.

However, a lot has changed in the past century including expectations of day-to-day experiences on campus as well as how much extra meeting those expectations cost.

Many of those costs don't scale linearly with number of students at numbers below 5000 (estimate that has risen in the past decade from 1000 students.

Deferred maintenance for IT infrastructure and electronic subscriptions of all types has much more effect after much less time than the historical practices related to postponing a new roof or skimping on book purchases for the library this year.  People with options may tolerate certain physical plant quirks much more readily than blippy internet access in classrooms that would be familiar to the students of the 1950s.

People with options now have a much greater range of options.  Harvard was elite 100 years ago compared to the little colleges.  However, Harvard now has a virtual reality lab in a library for normal student use.  Super Dinky bragged around 2015 for getting 10 desktop computers in the library with printing available. Prior to that time, there was no computer lab for students and never had been.

Likewise, it was a huge deal when SD got five brand-new Macs with licenses for graphics design software for a new course in art in 2016.  The regional comprehensive university within an easy drive for much less direct tuition cost has an entire graphics design program with a much larger lab and a note that most students in the program purchase laptops and then discounted-through-the-university software licenses.  25+ years ago, my alma mater had multiple computer labs for various purposes and that wasn't rare during my college search and tours.

In 2012, Super Dinky was completing conversion from a physical card catalog in the library to an electronic one.  SD was not the last in the region to make that conversion.

Part of the problem for many of these colleges is they managed to not update to even the late 20th century educational amenities due to cost and now the cost to be average in those amenities is prohibitive.  The cost to be average during the Great Depression was much easier to achieve or was at least less glaring to the casual observer.

The problem isn't lazy rivers in many cases.  The problem is exactly the gap between modern middle-class expectations of background technology and an educational experience that wouldn't be too unusual for the humanities student of the 1950s.

[Vkw10]

Another change from Great Depression to today is the demographic attending college. Pre WWII and the GI Bill, much of the middle class didn't attend college. Both state and private colleges were smaller. Colleges grew after WWII, fueled by GI Bill attendance, then baby boom. Changing expectations for education and availability of federal student grant and student loan programs helped make college the norm for middle class. Today, the state institutions have much more capacity than before WWII, so they're trying to fill classes even as number of HS grads decline.

[TreadingLife]

One of my colleagues works at a SLAC that has itself been benefiting from absorbing students from closed SLACs. At times, up to 10% of the student population has been made up of refugees from recently closed universities.

This has been very good for business at my colleague's SLAC. Revenues and enrollments are robust and healthy.

I am not sure how sustainable this economic model is, as I keep thinking that eventually one might run out of SLACs. But I also suppose that the students are still around, and they have to go college somewhere.

We live on this hope and dream (and sometimes reality) too.  I'm shocked we haven't just listed this in our strategic plan formally.

It reminds me of the following joke:

Steve and Mark are camping when a bear suddenly comes out and growls.  Steve starts putting on his tennis shoes.
Mark says, "What are you doing? You can't outrun a bear!"
Steve says, "I don't have to outrun the bear—I just have to outrun you!"

[polly_mer]

The latest report from SD is they were benefiting from closing schools whose students didn't want to go very far (picked up a whole softball term from one closing), but SD is probably the next one in the region that the bear gets.

[quasihumanist]

I've been wondering lately whether there are any figures anywhere regarding how many colleges closed during the Great Depression.  Was it very many?  Or did the great majority of colleges that were around at that time somehow manage to make it?

Many of the tiny colleges at risk for closing now were founded before the Civil War.  Therefore, they did survive the Great Depression.

However, a lot has changed in the past century including expectations of day-to-day experiences on campus as well as how much extra meeting those expectations cost.

Well into the Great Depression, many colleges also benefitted from having faculty that were willing to forego a living wage because they were independently wealthy.  They also depended on the unpaid labor of faculty wives who cooked and cleaned for boarding students without pay.

I can't dig up right who it was, but I recall a story of a Harvard professor resigning for a job at some (at that time) fledgling public university (maybe Wisconsin?) because Harvard expected its professors to maintain a lifestyle well beyond what could be afforded on a Harvard salary - because their expectation was that Harvard professors would be independently wealthy.

[dr_codex]

I've been wondering lately whether there are any figures anywhere regarding how many colleges closed during the Great Depression.  Was it very many?  Or did the great majority of colleges that were around at that time somehow manage to make it?

Many of the tiny colleges at risk for closing now were founded before the Civil War.  Therefore, they did survive the Great Depression.

However, a lot has changed in the past century including expectations of day-to-day experiences on campus as well as how much extra meeting those expectations cost.

Well into the Great Depression, many colleges also benefitted from having faculty that were willing to forego a living wage because they were independently wealthy.  They also depended on the unpaid labor of faculty wives who cooked and cleaned for boarding students without pay.

I can't dig up right who it was, but I recall a story of a Harvard professor resigning for a job at some (at that time) fledgling public university (maybe Wisconsin?) because Harvard expected its professors to maintain a lifestyle well beyond what could be afforded on a Harvard salary - because their expectation was that Harvard professors would be independently wealthy.

Reminds me of the time the Chair of my Ph.D. program opined to us in the mandated Professional Seminar that the reason that the academic job market no longer worked was that it was really set up for the landed gentry.

He wasn't in his job for long.

As you'd expect, he was promoted up and out.

[marshwiggle]

Well into the Great Depression, many colleges also benefitted from having faculty that were willing to forego a living wage because they were independently wealthy.  They also depended on the unpaid labor of faculty wives who cooked and cleaned for boarding students without pay.

I can't dig up right who it was, but I recall a story of a Harvard professor resigning for a job at some (at that time) fledgling public university (maybe Wisconsin?) because Harvard expected its professors to maintain a lifestyle well beyond what could be afforded on a Harvard salary - because their expectation was that Harvard professors would be independently wealthy.

Reminds me of the time the Chair of my Ph.D. program opined to us in the mandated Professional Seminar that the reason that the academic job market no longer worked was that it was really set up for the landed gentry.

That's hardly surprising, since those were the expectations for the students as well; you'd hardly expect faculty of a lower social class, because that would greatly diminish the signalling value of the degree.

What this reflects is the evolutionary nature of the system; as the student population changed significantly, the underlying intent was still to provide the same kind of "education" to a fundamentally different population, rather than going back to the drawing board and considering what sort of education would be most beneficial to the majority of students who were not landed gentry.

Now as more students question whether the cost is worth it, the question of what value it provides is unavoidable.

[Wahoo Redux]

One of my colleagues works at a SLAC that has itself been benefiting from absorbing students from closed SLACs. At times, up to 10% of the student population has been made up of refugees from recently closed universities.

This has been very good for business at my colleague's SLAC. Revenues and enrollments are robust and healthy.

I am not sure how sustainable this economic model is, as I keep thinking that eventually one might run out of SLACs. But I also suppose that the students are still around, and they have to go college somewhere.

We live on this hope and dream (and sometimes reality) too.  I'm shocked we haven't just listed this in our strategic plan formally.

That's us.  I've actually posted that before.  We have several SLACs in the neighborhood which are getting to the tipping point.  They draw from exactly the same student pool.

What's too bad is that some students, for whatever reason rightly or wrongly, want these small campuses. 

All a friend can say is ain't it a shame.