Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[Parasaurolophus]

At the same time, it sounds like they're looking to spend $17 million to upgrade athletic facilities, and are going to be funding a new lacrosse team. (Information gleaned from this petition.)

What drives enrollment?  At Super Dinky, 70% of students started as athletes.  At one point, the football team was a third of the student body and that was DIII with no athletic scholarships.

Getting full-pay students through athletic participation at a smaller school can be a better strategy than doubling down on majors that clearly aren't drawing.

The pre-professional athletics that are mostly about audience is a different case regarding budget than participatory activities.

For the record, I was a student-athlete--in a club sport, which meant that we funded it ourselves, through club dues and sponsorships. (I didn't pick my university for the sports, however. And things are different in this country.) I understand that athletics can be a draw for enrollment, but I'm not convinced that multi-million-dollar investments in athletics are the way to go when you're already in dire straits, or that you can add enough new sports to stem the shortfalls. Similarly, when you're in a hard financial position, I'm not sure that new multi-million-dollar infrastructure projects are a good idea. Maybe fine arts really does need a new studio space, because the existing ones are getting kind of unsafe, and fine arts is a draw to your school--in that case, great! The infrastructure upgrade may well be worthwhile. But will a new student centre--or a lazy river--really help?

I'm not actually against closing down majors (or even minors) in principle. It may well be that, in Baker's case, this is a smart move. But it also seems to me like majors are often the wrong metric by which to judge a department's performance. In fact, it seems mostly irrelevant to me: what's more important is enrollment in the classes offered. If there's plenty of enrollment in upper-level courses, then it doesn't really matter that only one or two people a year are declaring a major; you can just offer it, it's a freebie, and it probably actually helps keep a few students on campus. If, on the other hand, your upper-level class enrollment is consistently low (like, below the break-even point), then you have to ask whether you're just offering those courses to support the infrastructure required for a major, and whether there are enough majors to make that worthwhile (and the answer's probably 'no').

I'd also note, however, that I'm not sure we can really characterize maintaining a program or major as 'doubling down' when that major is served by a single instructor. Cutting the low-enrolled upper-level courses required for the major may or may not make financial sense, depending on how the lower-level courses are enrolling. But there's also only so much a single instructor can do (or be expected to do) on their own, especially in a discovery major. If you want to know whether a major in that subject is viable, I think you'd have to have more instructors to begin with. And if they still can't recruit a steady stream of majors, well then, at that point you have your answer. So: you'd first have to invest in it, period. But you can't be expecting 10- 20+ majors for a subject served only by a single instructor. Even 4-5 a year would be really pushing it.

At my (dinky!) institution, my department has six instructors, soon to be seven. We have more than enough instructors to support a really high-quality major in the subject. But we don't have one, because the administration has serious doubts about the number of majors we could pull in (and, frankly, they're probably not wrong; we'd probably get some, but not a number which would look good against the seven faculty--certainly not 20+ a year). We also don't have a minor (for similar reasons), and I suspect that's a mistake. We have very high and robust enrollments in the courses we offer, and the smattering of upper-level courses which occasionally run would suffice for a minor. (Without one, TBH, I don't see the point of running those courses at all.)

But here's the rub: the university has so few subjects that one can major or minor in, at the moment, that it's bleeding enrollment to other local institutions. And that bleeding, especially of domestic students, is getting to the point where it's endangering our (government) funding. We've coordinated with two other departments to try to offer a joint major, and it looks like that might eventually succeed, but there's a lot of admin pushback. But the reality is that you're not going to keep enrollments up if you don't offer your students any reason to stay.

[apl68]

Have we listed Baker University yet? Enrollments are down 39%, so they're cutting 18 faculty and staff positions, eliminating four majors (philosophy, theatre, French, and German), and eliminating two minors (French and German). The program cuts are motivated by low major enrollment (not surprising in departments with just one instructor).

At the same time, it sounds like they're looking to spend $17 million to upgrade athletic facilities, and are going to be funding a new lacrosse team. (Information gleaned from this petition.)

The four departments had five majors between them...so it is indeed difficult to see the justification for continuing them.  It's hard to see the alternative language majors they're considering doing much for them.

Looking to recruit more students by starting a new lacrosse team?  Seems like a real gamble.  This is not a good time for schools to be borrowing millions of dollars to upgrade their athletic facilities, even if there are students out there willing to pay good money just to play college sports.

A quick look at the higher education situation in Kansas suggests that they have more schools there than the state can support in a time of declining demographics.  They've got almost twice as many private colleges as Arkansas, with a similar population.  Including two other Methodist schools right there in-state.  I can see why students are worried about their alma mater's long-term prospects of survival. 

Interesting to note that students are starting to become aware of the fact that colleges are dying. 

[polly_mer]

Lacrosse is one of the few sports that might pay off in attracting more students who are more likely to be full-pay and college-ready who will graduate and then be useful as alumni.  The discussions in various places for years has been participating in the rich people sports to fit in at the elite institutions.  The recent Atlantic article had problems with specific examples, but the basic idea is sound.

Per class enrollment is a terrible way to budget when the straits are dire.  The only thing that matters is attracting new students who will pay nearly full price.  College-ready people with the means to pay nearly full price for the college experience want a movie-style college experience.  A community college generally shouldn't build a lazy river.  A S(mall)LAC promoting mens sana in corpore sano has a better shot.

People with means pick college based on experience and expected return on investment.  Electives tend to not matter, especially if those electives are only filled as a result of gen ed requirements, not actual interest in the subject.  People that interested generally would have picked a place with the major and then majored or minored.

Once the institution is at one to three professors carrying mostly gen eds, then the major should be declared dead.  If the upper-division courses were filled due to student interest, then there would be majors in droves and the faculty would not have been allowed to dwindle.

[Mobius]

Parents paying full price so their kids can play lacrosse don't really care about return on investment. Likewise, thee colleges have incentive to throw up a bunch of smoke and mirrors to give parents the warm fuzzies because their kid with average talent can play college sports.

[jonadam]

Canceling French and German, and in the next sentence talking about adding Hebrew, Arabic and ASL. Huh.

ASL and Arabic make a lot of sense, but Hebrew? Due to a variety of factors, Israelis all speak English very well; it's one of those countries where all of their imported media is subtitled and not dubbed.

[Ruralguy]

I'd say all educated Israelis speak English at least so that you can understand each other, but a higher percentage than you'd think aren't quite so well educated, at least not in Western languages, and it can be a struggle to speak in anything but Hebrew, or in certain areas, Arabic,maybe even Russian.

As for why teach Hebrew, I'd guess it's either student demand, or maybe some tradition of pre divinity students.

[polly_mer]

Canceling French and German, and in the next sentence talking about adding Hebrew, Arabic and ASL. Huh.

ASL and Arabic make a lot of sense, but Hebrew? Due to a variety of factors, Israelis all speak English very well; it's one of those countries where all of their imported media is subtitled and not dubbed.

Written documents exist from ancient times and we should keep the ability to interact with those documents.

[polly_mer]

Parents paying full price so their kids can play lacrosse don't really care about return on investment. Likewise, thee colleges have incentive to throw up a bunch of smoke and mirrors to give parents the warm fuzzies because their kid with average talent can play college sports.

The ROI expected is exactly the networking with the appropriate social class that will lead to a comfortable life.  The formal classes are much less important than having a good enough college degree and many contacts who accept the offspring as one of the in-group.

The status is not college athlete; the status is near upper-middle class with regular interactions with the people who matter through those people's offspring and the alumni network.

Classes only matter for people who will be using a preprofessional major, not for those who are spending four years networking and building social caputal.

[Ruralguy]

I might say *particular* classes probably don't matter so much to a student's future under the conditions you mention , Polly, but I don't think that means that classes universally don't matter (although obviously for some students classes obviously don't matter, and for still others, nothing matters!).

[apl68]

As for why teach Hebrew, I'd guess it's either student demand, or maybe some tradition of pre divinity students.

That kind of has me wondering.  I would have figured that a denominationally-affiliated school would already have classes in Hebrew.  Maybe they dropped it a while back and have now reconsidered?

[spork]

I might say *particular* classes probably don't matter so much to a student's future under the conditions you mention , Polly, but I don't think that means that classes universally don't matter (although obviously for some students classes obviously don't matter, and for still others, nothing matters!).

The wealthy don't sent their children to Harvard for the education.

[Ruralguy]

I can only tell you if that's so if I send my kid to Harvard.

[spork]

Guilford College has another interim president:

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2021/03/01/guilford-names-new-interim-president-second-year.

[Mobius]

Parents paying full price so their kids can play lacrosse don't really care about return on investment. Likewise, thee colleges have incentive to throw up a bunch of smoke and mirrors to give parents the warm fuzzies because their kid with average talent can play college sports.

The ROI expected is exactly the networking with the appropriate social class that will lead to a comfortable life.  The formal classes are much less important than having a good enough college degree and many contacts who accept the offspring as one of the in-group.

The status is not college athlete; the status is near upper-middle class with regular interactions with the people who matter through those people's offspring and the alumni network.

Classes only matter for people who will be using a preprofessional major, not for those who are spending four years networking and building social caputal.

I've been around a lot of LAC athletes, and that athlete status matters for many parents. These athletes rarely leave their hometown region after graduation, so they don't need the social network the LAC gives them. Those small town banks or insurance firms love that "former high school star/NAIA-DIII-DII athlete" is working for them, though. Qutting sports in college doesn't help them maintain that "star" status, even though they have connections from being from a family from the right side of the tracks in smallville.

[apl68]

Mount Holyoke has announced that they're shutting down their childcare center.  Faculty are understandably upset:


https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/03/01/mount-holyoke-abruptly-announces-closure-childcare-center


Not presented explicitly as a cost-cutting measure, but that's the only explanation that makes sense.  They have to have known how bad this would look.  Seems like I recall Mount Holyoke appearing on the "Dire Financial Straits" thread before, here or at the old Fora.