Chronicle article: what if everyone on campus understood the money?

[Wahoo Redux]

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I think it would be helpful for faculty on my campus to know the answers to most of these questions because then some might understand why it's really stupid to add required courses to the curriculum when those courses invariably get taught by adjuncts.

I would like to know the amount of money adjuncts make for the campus.

Didn't we have a money breakdown that illustrated how many of these adjunct-heavy disciplines actually pay for themselves and then some?  Wonder if I can find that.

Sure, let's see the numbers on these "stupid" courses involved with educating people.

[writingprof]

Admin hide the answers to these questions to weaponize the answers.

This.  Once one understands that the ultimate administrative goal is a university with no faculty, online-only students, robot graders, and a gleaming administrative tower with a Matrix-style spawning room (those assistant vice-deans don't come from storks), the behavior of our masters begins to make a lot more sense.

[dismalist]

This.  Once one understands that the ultimate administrative goal is a university with no faculty, online-only students, robot graders, and a gleaming administrative tower with a Matrix-style spawning room (those assistant vice-deans don't come from storks), the behavior of our masters begins to make a lot more sense.

Being non-profit [for good reason], and that they can't take the cash home, the ultimate goal of the median university administrator is to have a quiet life. Should not be a surprise that they are, on average, idiots. Thus, it should also not be surprising that many, many institutions will fail, given Covid, but especially, the rest of reality.

[polly_mer]

/

I think it would be helpful for faculty on my campus to know the answers to most of these questions because then some might understand why it's really stupid to add required courses to the curriculum when those courses invariably get taught by adjuncts.

I would like to know the amount of money adjuncts make for the campus.

Adjuncts teaching gen ed generally don't make money for the campus because students don't enroll in the university to take courses with Dr. Staff to meet the required 3 credits of SS/Div.

Students enroll to major in something specific and/or possibly to study with Big Name Professors X and Y. 

Students enroll for Brand Name institution networking and name recognition.

It's true that paying adjuncts a pitiful amount compared to a full-time faculty member who also gets benefits means a given course costs slightly less to deliver.  But, that's not really the same as making the university money by ensuring that the highly desirable majors can admit more students or recruiting for a solid major.

Name brand campuses and great majors seldom have armies of poorly paid adjuncts covering even gen ed because that's not the experience for which people will pay good money.

One red flag for institutional finances is having gone the armies of poorly paid adjunct route for gen ed

[spork]

/

I think it would be helpful for faculty on my campus to know the answers to most of these questions because then some might understand why it's really stupid to add required courses to the curriculum when those courses invariably get taught by adjuncts.

I would like to know the amount of money adjuncts make for the campus.

Didn't we have a money breakdown that illustrated how many of these adjunct-heavy disciplines actually pay for themselves and then some?  Wonder if I can find that.

Sure, let's see the numbers on these "stupid" courses involved with educating people.

It's long-term stupid to have full-time faculty individually teaching a total of thirty students per semester in their precious upper-level courses in programs graduating 3-4 majors per year, when each adjunct teaches ninety students per semester for 1/8 the compensation in required gen ed courses. Some faculty here are now recognizing just how stupid it is because searches to fill open positions in their departments are now postponed/permanently cancelled. But naturally most of the faculty members who created and prevented change in the curriculum are either retired or close to it.

[Vkw10]

I don't think most faculty need to know this specific information.

You know, though, when they come at you with a "we-need-to-cut-back" mantra while your classes have waiting lists and admin are getting salary bumps and you are being told you can't have a COL raise this year, it gets a little hard to buy.

Respectfully, I think we DO need to know these things.  I think the public needs to know these things----particularly if we want to mollify the political sharks who circle our campuses demanding to know why tuition keeps rising.

I think we're using "need to know" in different contexts. I was thinking in terms of having specific details on the tip of the tongue, able to say at any point what the university spends in various categories, the way the article's author suggested. Most faculty don't need that level of knowledge. They do need ready access to details about finances, enrollment, and assessment data, because access to information is critical for shared governance. At my last university, it was almost impossible to obtain information without filing FOIA  requests.  My current university offers an annual workshop on how to find university information, open to all employees, although one does need a decent understanding of university budget codes to understand the financial data.

[Ancient Fellow]

Admin hide the answers to these questions to weaponize the answers.

This.  Once one understands that the ultimate administrative goal is a university with no faculty, online-only students, robot graders, and a gleaming administrative tower with a Matrix-style spawning room (those assistant vice-deans don't come from storks), the behavior of our masters begins to make a lot more sense.

Ha! Brilliant!

[Wahoo Redux]

I don't think most faculty need to know this specific information.

You know, though, when they come at you with a "we-need-to-cut-back" mantra while your classes have waiting lists and admin are getting salary bumps and you are being told you can't have a COL raise this year, it gets a little hard to buy.

Respectfully, I think we DO need to know these things.  I think the public needs to know these things----particularly if we want to mollify the political sharks who circle our campuses demanding to know why tuition keeps rising.

I think we're using "need to know" in different contexts. I was thinking in terms of having specific details on the tip of the tongue, able to say at any point what the university spends in various categories, the way the article's author suggested. Most faculty don't need that level of knowledge. They do need ready access to details about finances, enrollment, and assessment data, because access to information is critical for shared governance. At my last university, it was almost impossible to obtain information without filing FOIA  requests.  My current university offers an annual workshop on how to find university information, open to all employees, although one does need a decent understanding of university budget codes to understand the financial data.

I was just thinking of having it available in general.  No way would I or any of the people I work with have the info on the tips of our tongues----in fact, we probably wouldn't particularly worry about it.

When it comes up is during contract negotiations.  Every three years the admin makes claims that do not seem to match what little we know.  They re-sodded the football field this year even though we don't have a season; it was a hefty chunk of change.  Guess how many non-teaching staff members the school laid off.

[Caracal]

I don't think most faculty need to know this specific information.

You know, though, when they come at you with a "we-need-to-cut-back" mantra while your classes have waiting lists and admin are getting salary bumps and you are being told you can't have a COL raise this year, it gets a little hard to buy.

Respectfully, I think we DO need to know these things.  I think the public needs to know these things----particularly if we want to mollify the political sharks who circle our campuses demanding to know why tuition keeps rising.

I think we're using "need to know" in different contexts. I was thinking in terms of having specific details on the tip of the tongue, able to say at any point what the university spends in various categories, the way the article's author suggested. Most faculty don't need that level of knowledge. They do need ready access to details about finances, enrollment, and assessment data, because access to information is critical for shared governance. At my last university, it was almost impossible to obtain information without filing FOIA  requests.  My current university offers an annual workshop on how to find university information, open to all employees, although one does need a decent understanding of university budget codes to understand the financial data.

I was just thinking of having it available in general.  No way would I or any of the people I work with have the info on the tips of our tongues----in fact, we probably wouldn't particularly worry about it.

When it comes up is during contract negotiations.  Every three years the admin makes claims that do not seem to match what little we know.  They re-sodded the football field this year even though we don't have a season; it was a hefty chunk of change.  Guess how many non-teaching staff members the school laid off.

On one hand, there's probably some reasonable explanation for this. Athletics money often comes from separate pots. A donor might have paid for the field, or there could be some separate athletic endowment. I can see why administrators often find faculty complaints like this frustrating. But, often I think this is a way to avoid a larger discussion about priorities. You probably couldn't actually take the money from the field and keep an extra staff member, but it probably reflects the way the school has courted donors, assigned priorities and managed their budget.

[jimbogumbo]

I don't think most faculty need to know this specific information.

You know, though, when they come at you with a "we-need-to-cut-back" mantra while your classes have waiting lists and admin are getting salary bumps and you are being told you can't have a COL raise this year, it gets a little hard to buy.

Respectfully, I think we DO need to know these things.  I think the public needs to know these things----particularly if we want to mollify the political sharks who circle our campuses demanding to know why tuition keeps rising.

I think we're using "need to know" in different contexts. I was thinking in terms of having specific details on the tip of the tongue, able to say at any point what the university spends in various categories, the way the article's author suggested. Most faculty don't need that level of knowledge. They do need ready access to details about finances, enrollment, and assessment data, because access to information is critical for shared governance. At my last university, it was almost impossible to obtain information without filing FOIA  requests.  My current university offers an annual workshop on how to find university information, open to all employees, although one does need a decent understanding of university budget codes to understand the financial data.

I was just thinking of having it available in general.  No way would I or any of the people I work with have the info on the tips of our tongues----in fact, we probably wouldn't particularly worry about it.

When it comes up is during contract negotiations.  Every three years the admin makes claims that do not seem to match what little we know.  They re-sodded the football field this year even though we don't have a season; it was a hefty chunk of change.  Guess how many non-teaching staff members the school laid off.

On one hand, there's probably some reasonable explanation for this. Athletics money often comes from separate pots. A donor might have paid for the field, or there could be some separate athletic endowment. I can see why administrators often find faculty complaints like this frustrating. But, often I think this is a way to avoid a larger discussion about priorities. You probably couldn't actually take the money from the field and keep an extra staff member, but it probably reflects the way the school has courted donors, assigned priorities and managed their budget.

Just checked an article from five years ago. It cost the Chicago Bears $250,000 to re-sod the field (which they did at least 3 times!). If Wahoo's place is anything like mine athletic expenditures directly impact the general fund dollars.

[Ruralguy]

We had someone donate money to "beautify" the campus with yearly planting of flowers, etc.  During the great recession we had to let a few people go and cut everyone else's salaries. Yet, at the same time, the flowers were all being planted. Someone asked how we could dare plant flowers when we were firing people. The answer was that it was an endowed fund. We couldn't use it for anything else nor could we insult the donor by not using the money.  People say the same thing about why we mow the grass so much, and the answer is that nobody wants to come to a school that's overgrown with weeds and such.

Though annual athletic maintenance is usually not donated money, we do get donations for total re-dos of fields, or bigger projects like stadium rebuilds.

[polly_mer]

When it comes up is during contract negotiations.  Every three years the admin makes claims that do not seem to match what little we know.  They re-sodded the football field this year even though we don't have a season; it was a hefty chunk of change.  Guess how many non-teaching staff members the school laid off.

What does admissions research indicate about how students are choosing your institution over competitors?  At Super Dinky (DIII), 70% of the students entered as athletes with a large fraction being three sport athletes.

If football is a big draw for you for the party/PR aspect, then having adequate facilities (new sod takes a while to be great) can be a good investment.

Student experience is far more than time in the classroom.  Having enough support people so lines are short and phones/emails are answered immediately is more important than paying the adjunct army more.  Having enough activities to appeal to students is part of the college experience.  Students can arrange their own parties, but all the enrichment bandied about on a different thread is arranged by employees with only a small fraction arranged by faculty.  Sports as a party opportunity is often part of the appeal for state universities with medium-to-large enrollment. 

The athletes themselves are much less of the revenue than the pageantry for the games.  Even if the games themselves don't bring a lot of revenue, the spirit apparel, good enough regular PR, and good will/fond memories of the community tend to help fill the gaps.

[jimbogumbo]

Endowed and donated funds  are seldom used for athletic maintenance at most places. For all the regional publics with D1 and D2 programs athletics are certainly subsidized by general fund dollars and the Super-Dinky reference simply doesn't apply. With what we pay staff members a re-sodding would easily pay 5+ yearly salaries.

With no season it is actually a good time to re-sod a field if you have the cash. However, only the really big D1 programs have the cash this year, and even many of those are furloughing staff.

[Wahoo Redux]

What does admissions research indicate about how students are choosing your institution over competitors?  At Super Dinky (DIII), 70% of the students entered as athletes with a large fraction being three sport athletes.

Good questions, Polly, and at one or another point in time you've asked these same and I've answered these same.  Nevertheless, these are good points and I can explain.

People choose our school because it is the cheapest in the state, it is near our students' neighborhoods (hence these folks can live at home), and open admission.  In other words, our student body is almost exclusively from the metro area we are situated in, well over 90%, so much so that I have met only three students not from the immediate area----so much so that I ask, "How did you end up here?" and there's always been a family connection.  A quarter of the students are POC, and a large percentage are first-generation.

In other words, we are the safety school.  Somehow the mix we get is better than you would expect from an open-enrollment place----from those who are unable to formulate a grammatically complete sentence to valedictorians at their tiny rural high schools.  Some utterly terrible students, a great many mediocre students, a small faction of very good students, a smattering of super smart people.

If football is a big draw for you for the party/PR aspect, then having adequate facilities (new sod takes a while to be great) can be a good investment.

It is not.

Our comparatively tiny Div-1A stadium is virtually empty on game day.  Our teams have something like a 50% win rate at best.  High school games are regularly broadcast in their entirety on the local affiliates----the only time our sports make the news is when one of the coaches makes an extraordinarily clueless politically incorrect public statement.  I swear, these are almost regularly scheduled.

I've had a number of papers from students about subsidizing sports in college; these are people very concerned with finances, and they are not happy about the grand they usually pay every year to do things like sodding the football field.

Student experience is far more than time in the classroom.  Having enough support people so lines are short and phones/emails are answered immediately is more important than paying the adjunct army more.  Having enough activities to appeal to students is part of the college experience.  Students can arrange their own parties, but all the enrichment bandied about on a different thread is arranged by employees with only a small fraction arranged by faculty.  Sports as a party opportunity is often part of the appeal for state universities with medium-to-large enrollment. 

Sports have been both evil and glorious at both my undergrad and grad alma maters. 

Not here.

The athletes themselves are much less of the revenue than the pageantry for the games.  Even if the games themselves don't bring a lot of revenue, the spirit apparel, good enough regular PR, and good will/fond memories of the community tend to help fill the gaps.

See above.

[polly_mer]

People choose our school because it is the cheapest in the state, it is near our students' neighborhoods (hence these folks can live at home), and open admission.  In other words, our student body is almost exclusively from the metro area we are situated in, well over 90%, so much so that I have met only three students not from the immediate area----so much so that I ask, "How did you end up here?" and there's always been a family connection.  A quarter of the students are POC, and a large percentage are first-generation.

What are the projections for high school graduation for the next five to ten years?  Some parts of the country will see declines of 30% from the high in 2012 with no reason to expect to ever come back up as the region dies.

How have your demographics shifted in the past five years and how will they continue to shift in the next ten years?  Going from 70% of a large total number of HS graduates enrolling full-time to only half of a much smaller group that will go primarily part-time is problematic. Even if the institution manages to have the same FTE, but as part-time students means keeping income about the same, but needing to provide more support services at more expense.

Why is your institution the cheapest in the region and what's the margin on projected enrollment?  In other words, if your institution reasonably raised price to reflect rising costs of maintenance, IT infrastructure, and faculty in majors with excellent non-academic options, would your students bail?

What are the state appropriations looking like?  Higher ed is often one of the few areas that can legally be cut from the state budget.  If your institution used to get a fraction like 30% of the revenue in from appropriations and now it's going to be 10%, then that's a big problem, especially if your institution doesn't have several sources of revenue that perhaps could take up the slack.  If your revenue is tuition/fees, appropriations, and a pitiful amount of giving from alumni, then that's really a huge concern for the next three years.

How have the majors changed over the last decade?  Nursing and engineering are expensive to run.  Keeping computers updated for graphical design, CS, and a few other majors is expensive.  Internships and practicuums in social work, education, and nursing limit the size of the cohorts that can be admitted.  If you've had huge growth in the humanities, then that's good and bucks the national trends where the expensive-to-deliver majors are generally the growth areas.

How have the fractions of students who come in as essentially sophomores or as transfer students been changing?  Having to recruit much more because few students come in with no credits and stay for four to six years of full-time enrollment is an additional cost to the university, particularly if those cheaper-to-deliver-but-cost-full-price courses are the ones being skipped.  One university model is to only admit students who have already met the gen ed requirements and only offer the major courses and therefore justify a higher tuition. 

However, if the university standard tuition assumes that almost half the courses will be the cheaper-to-deliver-gen-eds to subsidize the cost of other courses, then that's a big financial hole looming, even if head count remains the same.