Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[BadWolf]

And another:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/institutions/private-nonprofit-colleges/2023/08/25/another-small-college-hodges-university

[namazu]

"Union Institute cancels fall term as financial issues mount"

From the article:

The news comes just a few weeks after Union Institute decided to delay the start of the semester until Sept. 11. The university usually starts classes in late August, but now it's planning to begin the year on Nov. 6.

In the message, Frederick insists the school has no plans to close and goes on to say the cancelation is important for the well-being of students and the long-term future of the university. With more time, Frederick says Union Institute can ensure financial aid will be available to all eligible students when classes resume.

According to students and faculty, Union Institute hasn't paid many of its faculty members in months, and students who were supposed to receive their federal financial aid refunds in July are still waiting for their money.

They appear (not surprisingly) to be in danger of losing accreditation. 

Sounds dire, all right.

[Hibush]

"Union Institute cancels fall term as financial issues mount"

From the article:

The news comes just a few weeks after Union Institute decided to delay the start of the semester until Sept. 11. The university usually starts classes in late August, but now it's planning to begin the year on Nov. 6.

In the message, Frederick insists the school has no plans to close and goes on to say the cancelation is important for the well-being of students and the long-term future of the university. With more time, Frederick says Union Institute can ensure financial aid will be available to all eligible students when classes resume.

According to students and faculty, Union Institute hasn't paid many of its faculty members in months, and students who were supposed to receive their federal financial aid refunds in July are still waiting for their money.

They appear (not surprisingly) to be in danger of losing accreditation. 

Sounds dire, all right.

"On Thursday, Union Institute's accreditor The Higher Learning Commission assigned the school a Financial Distress designation." 
You'd think HLC would issue that warning before faculty had gone unpaid for months.

[namazu]

"Union Institute cancels fall term as financial issues mount"

From the article:

The news comes just a few weeks after Union Institute decided to delay the start of the semester until Sept. 11. The university usually starts classes in late August, but now it's planning to begin the year on Nov. 6.

In the message, Frederick insists the school has no plans to close and goes on to say the cancelation is important for the well-being of students and the long-term future of the university. With more time, Frederick says Union Institute can ensure financial aid will be available to all eligible students when classes resume.

According to students and faculty, Union Institute hasn't paid many of its faculty members in months, and students who were supposed to receive their federal financial aid refunds in July are still waiting for their money.

They appear (not surprisingly) to be in danger of losing accreditation. 

Sounds dire, all right.

"On Thursday, Union Institute's accreditor The Higher Learning Commission assigned the school a Financial Distress designation." 
You'd think HLC would issue that warning before faculty had gone unpaid for months.

Yeah!  And yet...

[lightning]

"Union Institute cancels fall term as financial issues mount"

From the article:

The news comes just a few weeks after Union Institute decided to delay the start of the semester until Sept. 11. The university usually starts classes in late August, but now it's planning to begin the year on Nov. 6.

In the message, Frederick insists the school has no plans to close and goes on to say the cancelation is important for the well-being of students and the long-term future of the university. With more time, Frederick says Union Institute can ensure financial aid will be available to all eligible students when classes resume.

According to students and faculty, Union Institute hasn't paid many of its faculty members in months, and students who were supposed to receive their federal financial aid refunds in July are still waiting for their money.

They appear (not surprisingly) to be in danger of losing accreditation. 

Sounds dire, all right.

"On Thursday, Union Institute's accreditor The Higher Learning Commission assigned the school a Financial Distress designation." 
You'd think HLC would issue that warning before faculty had gone unpaid for months.

Yeah!  And yet...

The HLC would have gotten around to it sooner, but the HLC first had to make sure that Union's SLOs were standardized and measurable, unit faculty were collecting lotsa data about learning, unit heads were making reports, deans were making reports of reports, Academic Affairs were making reports of reports of reports, and everyone was closing the feedback loop and muttering some stuff about Bloom's Taxonomy.  jk

[Hibush]

The HLC would have gotten around to it sooner, but the HLC first had to make sure that Union's SLOs were standardized and measurable, unit faculty were collecting lotsa data about learning, unit heads were making reports, deans were making reports of reports, Academic Affairs were making reports of reports of reports, and everyone was closing the feedback loop and muttering some stuff about Bloom's Taxonomy. 

Concisely accurate! HoF.

[lightning]

OMG! That is quite an honor. Are there any prizes? Steak knives? A free semester at the HPER building? Use of the D1 Coaches locker room? No committee work for a year? I get to keep my job?

[Hibush]

OMG! That is quite an honor. Are there any prizes? Steak knives? A free semester at the HPER building? Use of the D1 Coaches locker room? No committee work for a year? I get to keep my job?

You get to submit an extra report on honors to the unit head! Restrain yourself from using the steak knives on anyone.

[Mobius]

Haven't heard of it. I have heard of about 10% of those that have closed.

[jimbogumbo]

More on WVU. The statement re a shortage of language teachers in high schools is spot on. My old high school, where I and my two sisters graduated in the 70s has no Spanish teacher. I've mentioned that both sisters learned Spanish well enough to start as juniors in those courses and graduate in three years (one double majored in Spanish and Portuguese with a minor in Italian).

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/19/opinions/west-virginia-university-gordon-gee-humanities-cuts-krebs/index.html

[Hibush]

SUNY Potsdam.

It has gotten a lot smaller, in part because of location (very cold and very remote) that can't be changed. It also serves a region where the population is increasingly hostile to education.

The goal is the only one that works. "we need to reimagine our campus as serving a steady enrollment of 2,500 students, with hopes of growing to 3,000 or more one day,  reflecting the reality of the higher education marketplace—instead of building a budget around unrealistic expectations of returning to historic highs." That echoes the situation at WVU pretty closely, except the school is only a tenth as big.

To do this, they will shut the 14 departments that have lost a lot of enrolment and are now to small. That also echoes WVU. (Note that WVU is cutting 10% of the majors, but that cut affects only 1% of the students.)

I hope president Smith handles this reduction more gracefully than president  Gee.

[apl68]

Well, she lays out the case pretty cogently.  Enrollment is off by two-fifths from its peak, and can't reasonably be expected to come back to that.  There's a structural deficit in finances of over 20%.  Low-hanging administrative fruit has apparently already been plucked.  So there's just no way out of a managed decline that will cost some people their jobs and result in the shutting down of majors and of certain facilities.

She's eliminating a couple of fairly high admin positions, to show that it's not all going to fall on the faculty.  There is of course talk of expanding online offerings, but no promises that the school can work miracles through that.  No hail-Mary plays involving e-sports or partnerships with for-profit corporations.  Presumably any remaining humanities majors at the school are on the chopping block.

Hope they can manage their decline successfully.  In a declining society and declining world that's about all you can do.

[Parasaurolophus]

Australia Catholic University is planning to fire an awful lot of permanent faculty in philosophy, history, political science, theology, and religious studies. 48 of them, including 13 philosophers in the Dianoia Institute of Philosophy. (But also: big cuts to theology and religious studies?!)

I don't know about the other disciplines, but what's especially significant (and appalling) about the philosophy case is that it established the Dianoia Institute in 2019, and spent a pile of cash to hire very famous philosophers to research-only positions there. They were hired as permanent employees. The idea behind this and other spending, apparently, was to boost the university's international ranking in THES and other rankings, and it worked: they went from being entirely unranked (i.e. outside the top 800) to a respectable ranking (in this case, the top 300). The Dianoia Institute, in particular, has been sponsoring and participating in loads of events and grants over the last few years, and is now among the top-ranked Australasian departments in philosophy. It was projected to be generating a $6 million surplus by 2026-7. The PhD students are being told that their studies won't be affected, which... well, that's obviously impossible, if their supervisors are all being fired.

What seems to have happened is that the admin that made these hires left, new administrators have swept in, and they've decided that the investment has paid off and can be terminated.

Despite claiming poverty, the university appears to be spending plenty of cash on other, similar efforts, including an "Australian Centre for the Advancement of Literacy," which involves hiring "the largest group of working scientists in this area in Australia." I wonder how that'll go?

[Parasaurolophus]

At least one of the ACU faculty members apparently got their visa in July, and had their position cut in September.

Other news: SUNY Potsdam is planning to cut 14 degree programs, and some unknown number of faculty positions. The programs are:

• Art history (BA)
• Arts management (BA)
• Biochemistry (MS)
• Chemistry (BA and BS)
• Dance (BA)
• French (BA)
• Music performance (MM)
• Philosophy (BA)
• Physics (BA)
• Public health (BS and MS)
• Spanish (BA)
• Theater (BA)

Some of these cuts were apparently planned in 2022, then reversed because of accreditation issues (due in part to absence of evidence). That they're returning to them after that is... interesting.

[apl68]

At least one of the ACU faculty members apparently got their visa in July, and had their position cut in September.

Other news: SUNY Potsdam is planning to cut 14 degree programs, and some unknown number of faculty positions. The programs are:

• Art history (BA)
• Arts management (BA)
• Biochemistry (MS)
• Chemistry (BA and BS)
• Dance (BA)
• French (BA)
• Music performance (MM)
• Philosophy (BA)
• Physics (BA)
• Public health (BS and MS)
• Spanish (BA)
• Theater (BA)

Some of these cuts were apparently planned in 2022, then reversed because of accreditation issues (due in part to absence of evidence). That they're returning to them after that is... interesting.

Well, cutting philosophy and their performing arts and languages majors was only to be expected in today's climate.  Surprised to see so much STEM gone as well--although if you're trying to save money, that's where you'll save the most.  Surprised they're not cutting English and history, but wouldn't be too surprised if that's perhaps because they're already gone.