Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[Wahoo Redux]

Henderson State University has talked the state into giving them $825,000 in rainy-day funds to keep them from having to immediately furlough staff.


https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2020/may/28/state-committee-approves-sending-henderson-state-u/


They've worked hard for it.  Previous articles have detailed the hoops they've had to jump through to convince the state that they really needed the money and would put it to good use.

Rock on HSU!

[picard]

Across the pond, SOAS - formerly called the School of Oriental and African Studies - part of the University of London,  just announced a new round of budget cuts and staff retrenchment, as the ongoing global health crisis results in further enrollment drops and financial troubles for the institution - long known as a leading institution for language and regional studies in the UK - particularly for the studies of former British colonies in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/may/29/soas-to-slash-budgets-and-staff-as-debt-crisis-worsens-in-pandemic

Staff say they fear that management is cutting costs to make the college, formerly called the School of Oriental and African Studies, a palatable takeover target for an overseas institution or one of its London rivals, as the latest financial figures show that it to be carrying multi-million pound deficits and risks running out of cash next year.

Soas's auditors warned this month that the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on student recruitment meant "a material uncertainty exists that may cast significant doubt on the school's ability to continue as a going concern" over the next 12 months.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/may/29/soas-empire-school-of-oriental-and-african-studies-language-study-uk

One of Soas's specialities remains the languages of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. But the study of popular modern foreign languages, such as French and German, has been in decline in the UK for the past decade, as fewer pupils take them at school. That has left Soas's suite of language courses facing an even tougher domestic recruitment market.

Teaching languages is also relatively expensive. In larger universities, cheaper and more popular courses, such as politics and law, cross-subsidise the costs of modern languages, but Soas is also a victim of its size. While it does offer popular courses such as law for undergraduates, the numbers are too small to offset the costs of language provision. While English universities have a median turnover of about £150m a year, Soas's is barely £90m.

[picard]

The president of Lewis & Clark College of Portland, Oregon, just wrote an op-ed in the New Republic making the case of why a liberal arts education is valuable in a time of the ongoing global health and economic crisis. Many of the arguments he made in the op-ed is reinventing and extolling the virtues of liberal arts education (e.g., it teaches students the value of citizenship and civil engagement and that over the long run its investment would pay off and would be at par, if not higher with those graduating with professional business or engineering decrees):

https://newrepublic.com/article/157845/case-liberal-arts-college-coronavirus-crisis

In January, the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce released a first-of-its-kind study showing that, over a lifetime, graduates of liberal arts colleges earn a higher return on their education investment than do graduates of all other colleges.

Underscoring all the data are the stories I hear from students and alumni. Research studies and anecdotes attest that higher education still provides the best methods for separating facts from fiction. It is still the place where a habit for truth and the honorable treatment of all must be our daily discipline. It is still where students become active citizens.

Nonetheless, as some of you have highlighted in this thread, the challenge facing most LAC today is not so much of promoting civic values and long-term career success. It's how to convince most low to middle-class families that spending $40 to $60K/year for their children's education would be worth the loans, second mortgages, or any other financial sacrifice the family would need to make in order to afford this type of education, in a time of what could be the Great Depression 2.0 approaching and ensure that it all this investment would worth the high price tag and the lack of immediate financial payoff a liberal arts education would likely produce. I'm afraid without some assurances that their children's college investment would produce an immediate payoff in some way, most middle-class parents would rather send their kids to state universities or private schools with comprehensive professional offerings which can better offer such assurances

Elite LACs like Lewis and Clark with its old money WASP student and alumni base, with a substantially large endowment would most likely be able to survive the economic upheaval ahead. I'm not sure whether lesser known and non-elite LACs (such as the one yours truly attended) which largely tuition-dependent and not having their finances subsidized by a sizable endowment would be able to survive the upcoming Great Transformation of American higher education system.

[marshwiggle]

https://newrepublic.com/article/157845/case-liberal-arts-college-coronavirus-crisis

In January, the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce released a first-of-its-kind study showing that, over a lifetime, graduates of liberal arts colleges earn a higher return on their education investment than do graduates of all other colleges.

Underscoring all the data are the stories I hear from students and alumni. Research studies and anecdotes attest that higher education still provides the best methods for separating facts from fiction. It is still the place where a habit for truth and the honorable treatment of all must be our daily discipline. It is still where students become active citizens.

The president of Lewis & Clark College of Portland, Oregon, just wrote an op-ed in the New Republic making the case of why a liberal arts education is valuable in a time of the ongoing global health and economic crisis. Many of the arguments he made in the op-ed is reinventing and extolling the virtues of liberal arts education (e.g., it teaches students the value of citizenship and civil engagement and that over the long run its investment would pay off and would be at par, if not higher with those graduating with professional business or engineering decrees):

The article didn't specifically mention business or engineering, and the link to Georgetown didn't link to any specific result.

So it's not clear what specific results the Georgetown study came up with or how they did.

[polly_mer]

First, many of the studies of the value of a liberal arts degree don't differentiate between folks who only have a BA and thus who continue on to graduate work including JD, MBA, and MD.  The standard research shows the value of attending an elite institution and drawing on their network or the value of a good profession graduate degree or both.

Second, a chemistry degree is a liberal arts degree.  A chemical engineering degree is a professional degree.

One of them tends to pay $35k right after college graduation and one tends to pay $65k for a new BS.

Both tend to pay $100k by middle career if one is still employed in the field, but significant fractions of people do something else after college that are still middle class careers.

While it's possible to major in chemistry at many S(mall)LACs, engineering is seldom found at S(mall)LACs.

Thus, while there's no penalty for graduating with a chemical engineering degree and then doing something else after a couple years of professional practice, there's often a significant penalty for going straight chemistry, taking a low-paying technician job, and then going back for a graduate degree or finding a different middle-class job that pays better.

The current discussion in physics is how to recruit more college students to save undergrad liberal arts education without becoming engineering.  The discussion is very much like the humanities discussion and relies heavily on folks not looking up that many recent physics BS graduates in stable jobs have the title of engineer.

[Wahoo Redux]

The article didn't specifically mention business or engineering, and the link to Georgetown didn't link to any specific result.

So it's not clear what specific results the Georgetown study came up with or how they did.

Oh Marshy.  Look at link which says "ROI of Liberal Arts Education"; it's a separate PDF.  Its headline:

"Median ROI of Liberal Arts Colleges Nearly $200,000 Higher Than the Median for All Colleges, New Georgetown University Report Says
"Students from the 47 most selective liberal arts institutions see 40-year financial returns of $1.13 million"

[marshwiggle]

The article didn't specifically mention business or engineering, and the link to Georgetown didn't link to any specific result.

So it's not clear what specific results the Georgetown study came up with or how they did.

Oh Marshy.  Look at link which says "ROI of Liberal Arts Education"; it's a separate PDF.  Its headline:

"Median ROI of Liberal Arts Colleges Nearly $200,000 Higher Than the Median for All Colleges, New Georgetown University Report Says
"Students from the 47 most selective liberal arts institutions see 40-year financial returns of $1.13 million"

Thanks for the link. From the report's conclusions:

However, high ROIs are not uniform across these institutions. The 47 most
selective liberal arts colleges do very well—their median ROI is comparable
to that of doctoral institutions with high research activity. On the other
hand, the lowest-ranking four-year liberal arts colleges have 40-year ROIs
of less than $550,000, far below the average for all US colleges.
ROI can be affected by many factors—some within an institution's control
and some beyond it. For example, the ROI is higher at liberal arts colleges
with higher graduation rates and those that enroll smaller shares of
low-income students. Majors matter, too: institutions with higher shares
of students majoring in STEM disciplines have higher ROIs.

[polly_mer]

Only some STEM disciplines are liberal arts.

Science Technology Engineering Math.

Biology is a STEM field that is also a liberal arts field and is often taught at S(mall)LACs.  However, frustration abounds because it turns out that entry-level biology jobs open to the S(mall)LAC graduates pay about $30k. BS-level biology is  not generally where the shortage is in STEM.

Engineers in some specialties get paid well upon graduation because they are filling a shortage.

Some technology jobs pay well with an associate's degree because they fill a shortage.

Math can have poorly paid adjuncts at the PhD level or well-paid bachelor-degree holders with interesting experience.

[PScientist]

The current discussion in physics is how to recruit more college students to save undergrad liberal arts education without becoming engineering.  The discussion is very much like the humanities discussion and relies heavily on folks not looking up that many recent physics BS graduates in stable jobs have the title of engineer.

Hi, Polly!  I teach physics at what you might call a "S(mall)LAC" with respect to our undergraduate programs, although we are classified as a "doctoral professional university" because of some large graduate programs in the health professions.

We are glad to celebrate whatever success our students find, and we are glad to see that many of them end up in engineering roles, either with or without a master's degree in engineering first.  That is one kind of success that some of them have.  We promote it; we don't try to hide it!

We also celebrate the success of those who become high school teachers, or data scientists, or managers of microbreweries, or marketing consultants.  A few of them do go on to get a Ph.D. in physics or astronomy -- that's great, too.

Some of our students who end up in engineering careers could have gotten there more directly with an engineering bachelor's degree, but most of them were not ready for that as 18-year-olds.  I don't know whether every engineering program still takes the old-school pressure-cooker approach to undergraduate education, but I know that a lot of them do.  We're able to give students some years that they need to develop as mature people, and to catch up on math and quantitative reasoning skills, before they get into that world.

I am losing sleep over lots of things these days, but definitely not over the idea that our liberal-arts physics department is "becoming engineering."  We're not, even if half of our graduates are.  (I certainly do not hear the biology department fretting about "becoming medicine.")

[Wahoo Redux]

The article didn't specifically mention business or engineering, and the link to Georgetown didn't link to any specific result.

So it's not clear what specific results the Georgetown study came up with or how they did.

Oh Marshy.  Look at link which says "ROI of Liberal Arts Education"; it's a separate PDF.  Its headline:

"Median ROI of Liberal Arts Colleges Nearly $200,000 Higher Than the Median for All Colleges, New Georgetown University Report Says
"Students from the 47 most selective liberal arts institutions see 40-year financial returns of $1.13 million"

Thanks for the link. From the report's conclusions:

However, high ROIs are not uniform across these institutions. The 47 most
selective liberal arts colleges do very well—their median ROI is comparable
to that of doctoral institutions with high research activity. On the other
hand, the lowest-ranking four-year liberal arts colleges have 40-year ROIs
of less than $550,000, far below the average for all US colleges.
ROI can be affected by many factors—some within an institution's control
and some beyond it. For example, the ROI is higher at liberal arts colleges
with higher graduation rates and those that enroll smaller shares of
low-income students. Majors matter, too: institutions with higher shares
of students majoring in STEM disciplines have higher ROIs.

You have an amazing knack for finding the obvious and the well-known.

[marshwiggle]

The article didn't specifically mention business or engineering, and the link to Georgetown didn't link to any specific result.

So it's not clear what specific results the Georgetown study came up with or how they did.

Oh Marshy.  Look at link which says "ROI of Liberal Arts Education"; it's a separate PDF.  Its headline:

"Median ROI of Liberal Arts Colleges Nearly $200,000 Higher Than the Median for All Colleges, New Georgetown University Report Says
"Students from the 47 most selective liberal arts institutions see 40-year financial returns of $1.13 million"

Thanks for the link. From the report's conclusions:

However, high ROIs are not uniform across these institutions. The 47 most
selective liberal arts colleges do very well—their median ROI is comparable
to that of doctoral institutions with high research activity. On the other
hand, the lowest-ranking four-year liberal arts colleges have 40-year ROIs
of less than $550,000, far below the average for all US colleges.
ROI can be affected by many factors—some within an institution's control
and some beyond it. For example, the ROI is higher at liberal arts colleges
with higher graduation rates and those that enroll smaller shares of
low-income students. Majors matter, too: institutions with higher shares
of students majoring in STEM disciplines have higher ROIs.

You have an amazing knack for finding the obvious and the well-known.

Those were conclusions from the report. Take it up with the writers.

Here's all that I didn't include: (Preamble; i.e. before what I quoted above)

The share of students majoring in the liberal arts has been falling as more
students favor career-oriented majors. Some small colleges grounded
in the liberal arts have been failing. However, liberal arts colleges, on the
whole, offer strong returns on investment to their students. These colleges
rank third in ROI among the 14 categories of colleges

And here's the final bit: (after what I quoted above):

When evaluating the long-term return of attending any college, careful
consideration must be given to all the factors that might affect its ROI.

Does that final line show the authors have an amazing knack for finding the obvious and the well-known?

[Wahoo Redux]

The article didn't specifically mention business or engineering, and the link to Georgetown didn't link to any specific result.

So it's not clear what specific results the Georgetown study came up with or how they did.

Oh Marshy.  Look at link which says "ROI of Liberal Arts Education"; it's a separate PDF.  Its headline:

"Median ROI of Liberal Arts Colleges Nearly $200,000 Higher Than the Median for All Colleges, New Georgetown University Report Says
"Students from the 47 most selective liberal arts institutions see 40-year financial returns of $1.13 million"

Thanks for the link. From the report's conclusions:

However, high ROIs are not uniform across these institutions. The 47 most
selective liberal arts colleges do very well—their median ROI is comparable
to that of doctoral institutions with high research activity. On the other
hand, the lowest-ranking four-year liberal arts colleges have 40-year ROIs
of less than $550,000, far below the average for all US colleges.
ROI can be affected by many factors—some within an institution's control
and some beyond it. For example, the ROI is higher at liberal arts colleges
with higher graduation rates and those that enroll smaller shares of
low-income students. Majors matter, too: institutions with higher shares
of students majoring in STEM disciplines have higher ROIs.

You have an amazing knack for finding the obvious and the well-known.

Those were conclusions from the report. Take it up with the writers.

Here's all that I didn't include: (Preamble; i.e. before what I quoted above)

The share of students majoring in the liberal arts has been falling as more
students favor career-oriented majors. Some small colleges grounded
in the liberal arts have been failing. However, liberal arts colleges, on the
whole, offer strong returns on investment to their students. These colleges
rank third in ROI among the 14 categories of colleges

And here's the final bit: (after what I quoted above):

When evaluating the long-term return of attending any college, careful
consideration must be given to all the factors that might affect its ROI.

Does that final line show the authors have an amazing knack for finding the obvious and the well-known?

Yes.

[spork]

Edmit thinks one-third of the private colleges in its sample will run out of money within six years:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/upshot/virus-colleges-risky-strategy.html.

"If the probabilistic models collapse, revenue losses at some colleges could be much more severe than Edmit's assumptions."

I know of at least private college in the region that is looking at a possible 25% decline in enrollment for 2020-21.

[TreadingLife]

Edmit thinks one-third of the private colleges in its sample will run out of money within six years:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/upshot/virus-colleges-risky-strategy.html.

"If the probabilistic models collapse, revenue losses at some colleges could be much more severe than Edmit's assumptions."

I know of at least private college in the region that is looking at a possible 25% decline in enrollment for 2020-21.

Of at least one? Or more?  Oh the suspense!

We are budgeting for a 25% decline in enrollment at my LAC. We also moved our deadline to June 1, but let's be honest, we'll take anyone up to the add/drop period deadline.

[glowdart]

I know of very few schools that are not budgeting for a 25% decline in the incoming class. We just hope the retention rate also stays above 75%.