Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[lightning]

The original reasons to exist may be going away. Many schools were established to train teachers or clergy for the nearby region. Transportation has made it easy to go to a regional school. A lot of denominations are seeing a reduced supply of seminarians, and little willingness to subsidize the schools. Switching the program to criminal justice and nursing (fields with rural and small-town jobs) isn't going to be competitive for many of those.

In addition, getting faculty for criminal justice and nursing is much, much more expensive than getting comparably qualified humanities faculty willing to live in the hinterlands.  It's possible to get criminal justice faculty who earned a master's degree along the way and retire after their 20 years on the force.  However, those folks are much less likely to be enthusiastic about shared governance and many of the more academic parts of being a faculty member at a small college.  Those folks often want to interact students and profess in the classroom; those folks may even be good public speakers with public writings.  But, the retired police officer is seldom a pedagogy guru or particularly interested in any discussions related to general education other than a bland assertion that a good general education program is very useful to the average person.

Nursing is just plain expensive to run.  In addition to the graduate-trained faculty having many options and generally commanding market rates that are often double the rate for a humanities assistant professor at the same institution, the equipment has to remain state-of-the-art and arrangements have to be made for practicums with local hospitals.  Only so many practicum slots exist at any given hospital (after all, education is not the primary purpose of a small, rural hospital) and each practicum has a very low limit (often 5-8 students) based on a student/supervising faculty ratio for the good of the patients so the number of nursing faculty is usually much higher for a given number of students than almost any other program on campus.  Yes, that's correct: the most expensive faculty also have the smallest class sizes and also need to maintain an affiliation with a local hospital to ensure they can supervise practicums.

Nursing programs' class sizes, outside of practicums, can also be governed by state rules that are driven by the dictates of hospitals and clinics. So even if a tiny school wanted to go on-the-cheap and created a nursing program with outdated equipment and larger than practical class sizes, there's probably a law that prevents that. I'm not privy to the details of our medical center's nursing program, but I think there's a reason that actual hospitals who do patient care, also do a good job of running higher-ed nursing programs and have a better chance of controlling costs.

[Hibush]

I used nursing as an example of something that tempts administrators. The comments show how challenging it is to do well.

I checked Petersons.com. There are over 1000 programs in the US. In Ohio (to pick a state with a significant rural college inventory), there are 33 nursing programs at schools with fewer than 2000 students. So there are places trying.

[spork]

So what is going on here? Maybe the answers are in this thread and I missed them.

Why are so many small schools, most of which seem to have muddled along for a century, closing? What is the big picture explanation? The economy is good (in a way), young people are going to college. The public universities have raised tuition radically in the last decades--I would think that the private schools would be relatively more competitive. So why are they dying?

What others have said.

I look at my own institution and those in the region and I see the following: the traditional business model works well until it doesn't. For the last twenty years my institution has frittered away opportunities to become less dependent on 18-22 year old full-time residential students. Now a few people here are waking up to the fact that the pool of those potential students has been shrinking and will continue to shrink. They still refuse to recognize the fact that the potential students in this shrinking pool are better served by larger universities that can offer higher quality academic programs and more resources, often for the same or less money that we can.

I expect a long, slow slide into oblivion. No one on the faculty has taken notice, but we now have two occupational training programs staffed almost entirely by adjuncts. One is down to a single tenured faculty member and a full-time lecturer (both nearing retirement). At some point the light bulb is going to go off over some administrator's head (if it hasn't already) that it's far cheaper to run a program with only a single full-time faculty member, someone who will be a department chair with the primary responsibility of hiring adjuncts to teach the courses needed for the major.

[archaeo42]

What immediately popped to mind from Spork's description is the academic version of the gig economy. One staff member to oversee cheaper contractors.

[lightning]

I used nursing as an example of something that tempts administrators. The comments show how challenging it is to do well.

I checked Petersons.com. There are over 1000 programs in the US. In Ohio (to pick a state with a significant rural college inventory), there are 33 nursing programs at schools with fewer than 2000 students. So there are places trying.

I taught at one of those tiny rural places (enrollment less than 2,000) trying to maintain a nursing program. It was a struggle for the program to remain solvent. Money had to be re-directed to it because it could not stay in the black on its own. And this tiny place did this because the local hospital was always clamoring and yammering for more qualified nurses. Other areas like biology were starving (unless the course had a very very direct connection to nurse training)--the biology labs looked like something from a 1970s junior high school. When I moved to a large urban research university with a medical center, I began to see the wisdom of combining a higher-ed nursing program into a medical center. The nursing program, even at this large research university, was also in the red, but the clinical side absorbed a lot of the costs of running a nursing program. And why not? It's the medical center that will end up hiring some of their own graduates! They should pay for their future employees' training. How a tiny rural college with no history of STEM and no tech/medical infrastructure can start and run a nursing program is beyond me. I lived through a college's demise, when it tried to make nursing its signature program. [UPDATE: it was already beginning to circle the drain before the nursing experiment--the prioritizing of the nursing program just accelerated the inevitable.]

[mamselle]

What immediately popped to mind from Spork's description is the academic version of the gig economy. One staff member to oversee cheaper contractors.

One ring to rule them all...

M.

[secundem_artem]

So what is going on here? Maybe the answers are in this thread and I missed them.

Why are so many small schools, most of which seem to have muddled along for a century, closing? What is the big picture explanation? The economy is good (in a way), young people are going to college. The public universities have raised tuition radically in the last decades--I would think that the private schools would be relatively more competitive. So why are they dying?

It's not just the inky dinky places.  I'm at a private, mid-sized regional comprehensive in an allied health field.  We have a very good academic reputation and a reasonable student-life experience.  When I started here 20+ yrs ago, there were ~75 programs in my discipline nationally.  Now there are > 140.  Every little broken-a$$ bible college that was concerned about making payroll opened up a program.  We used to graduate 110 students a year.  Our incoming class this year is < 70.  It's a function of more competition for students, decreased student interest in my discipline and a tightened job market upon graduation.  Multiply 40 fewer students x $30,000 a year X a 6 year curriculum and you have a problem on your hands.  Our law school has suffered the same woes the rest of the law school market has suffered.

Next - demographics. The baby boom is over.  The baby boom echo is over.  Any 2nd degree echo that existed is over.  Here in flyover country, the cohort of 18-22 yr old residential college students is far smaller than it was say 10 years ago.  Our provost has been circulating an article predicting that the decreased birth rate during the 2008 recession means 15% fewer 18 year olds headed to college in 2026.  And since a college cohort lasts 4+ years, the economic impact of that goes out to 2030 or beyond. My uni has been late to the party in working to attract working age adult students, part-timers, first generation, English as a second language students, online programs, etc -- all of the demographic groups that are increasingly looking at college as a way to crawl up into  the middle class.

Our new(ish) president and provost seem to be aware of these issues and are working with the board to mitigate the consequences.  But we've been in deficit for the last 4 years, are predicting a deficit for the next 2 and then apparently a miracle will happen and by 2022, all is supposed to be well.

I'm monitoring my TIAA-CREF and ROTH-IRA accounts like a hawk and want to be ready to get out of here before the merde hits the fan.

[dr_codex]

So what is going on here? Maybe the answers are in this thread and I missed them.

Why are so many small schools, most of which seem to have muddled along for a century, closing? What is the big picture explanation? The economy is good (in a way), young people are going to college. The public universities have raised tuition radically in the last decades--I would think that the private schools would be relatively more competitive. So why are they dying?

It's not just the inky dinky places.  I'm at a private, mid-sized regional comprehensive in an allied health field.  We have a very good academic reputation and a reasonable student-life experience.  When I started here 20+ yrs ago, there were ~75 programs in my discipline nationally.  Now there are > 140.  Every little broken-a$$ bible college that was concerned about making payroll opened up a program.  We used to graduate 110 students a year.  Our incoming class this year is < 70.  It's a function of more competition for students, decreased student interest in my discipline and a tightened job market upon graduation.  Multiply 40 fewer students x $30,000 a year X a 6 year curriculum and you have a problem on your hands.  Our law school has suffered the same woes the rest of the law school market has suffered.

Next - demographics. The baby boom is over.  The baby boom echo is over.  Any 2nd degree echo that existed is over.  Here in flyover country, the cohort of 18-22 yr old residential college students is far smaller than it was say 10 years ago.  Our provost has been circulating an article predicting that the decreased birth rate during the 2008 recession means 15% fewer 18 year olds headed to college in 2026.  And since a college cohort lasts 4+ years, the economic impact of that goes out to 2030 or beyond. My uni has been late to the party in working to attract working age adult students, part-timers, first generation, English as a second language students, online programs, etc -- all of the demographic groups that are increasingly looking at college as a way to crawl up into  the middle class.

Our new(ish) president and provost seem to be aware of these issues and are working with the board to mitigate the consequences.  But we've been in deficit for the last 4 years, are predicting a deficit for the next 2 and then apparently a miracle will happen and by 2022, all is supposed to be well.

I'm monitoring my TIAA-CREF and ROTH-IRA accounts like a hawk and want to be ready to get out of here before the merde hits the fan.

Details different at my place, but basic message the same: numbers dropping (both admission and retention), demographics challenging, international programming almost dead on arrival.

We just been tasked as a collective to solve one of 3 problems: admission, retention, and/or revenue. Some of the solutions are obvious, but unpalatable. Some would involve wholesale disruptions of institutional practice, which might work but which would also alienate lots of folks. Last time we tried this in an existential crisis, it split the community in ways that only decades have begun to heal.

I'm unlikely to be near the front of the line if serious cuts come, but I won't be at the back, either. Also watching retirement accounts.

[polly_mer]

I used nursing as an example of something that tempts administrators. The comments show how challenging it is to do well.

I checked Petersons.com. There are over 1000 programs in the US. In Ohio (to pick a state with a significant rural college inventory), there are 33 nursing programs at schools with fewer than 2000 students. So there are places trying.

Super Dinky had a nursing program.  The break-even point financially was literally 3 students less than the maximum capacity of the program, which was an ongoing problem as the occasional student dropped out for personal reasons.  Admitting more freshmen doesn't fix the gap in an earlier cohort and stretches the program in bad ways because the cap of 8 in the practicum can't be raised, unlike most other courses in the college.  Thus, when someone doesn't come back sophomore year, that slot just remains empty until the cohort graduates.

[polly_mer]

Edgewood College in Wisconsin is cutting faculty positions and planning to cut majors.

"Over the past five years, enrollment has shrunk by 30 percent. Edgewood has just under 450 faculty and staff and enrolled around 1,600 students for the 2016-17 year."

For perspective, Edgewood would have only 320 faculty and staff if they were running at the same employee/student ratio as Super Dinky did for 500 students.

[spork]

University of Southern Maine spins off University of Maine School of Law: https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2019/09/amidst-40-decline-in-applications-university-approves-law-school-reorganization.html.

[spork]

Wittenberg University?

https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/local/wittenberg-university-cut-faculty-positions/b2Cafm8vfH1PCOWmyyDPFM/

Undergraduate FTE dropped from 2,158 in FY 2008 to 2,002 in FY 2017. Don't know what's been happening with enrollment there more recently.

[Hibush]

University of Southern Maine spins off University of Maine School of Law: https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2019/09/amidst-40-decline-in-applications-university-approves-law-school-reorganization.html.

"budget shortfalls, faculty positions that have gone unfilled or without pay raises, a lack of fundraising and marketing schemes, and an enrollment strategy that relies too heavily on scholarships. "

It looks like everything is going according to plan. The plan is to vanish.

[downer]

University of Southern Maine spins off University of Maine School of Law: https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2019/09/amidst-40-decline-in-applications-university-approves-law-school-reorganization.html.

"budget shortfalls, faculty positions that have gone unfilled or without pay raises, a lack of fundraising and marketing schemes, and an enrollment strategy that relies too heavily on scholarships. "

It looks like everything is going according to plan. The plan is to vanish.

Wut? No! They have a plan. They are changing their name! https://www.wmtw.com/article/usm-considers-name-change/28907136

Maybe this actually fits with the plan to vanish: USM is going into witness protection.

[Aster]

When someone wants to look like they're doing something innovative without actually doing anything at all, one of the most common tactics is to just rebrand the title of something that already exists.

Big Urban College is quite good at this. We've renamed something like four-ish basic services or facilities within the last year. So far, the only noticeable changes are that the college employees have to waste time and resources destroying all of the old titles on documents/signs/webpages/addresses and spend lots of time and money creating new titles for documents/signs/webpages/addresses.