Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[spork]

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/12/12/wesley-college-asks-state-funding

I'll post the same thing I did on IHE:

I hope DE helps Wesley.  Private school or not, let's keep our system of high ed from sustaining any further damage if we can.  We all stand to win or lose.

I am not familiar with Wesley, but it looks to me like state money would be better spent defraying the costs of attending state university campuses.

[polly_mer]

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/12/12/wesley-college-asks-state-funding

I'll post the same thing I did on IHE:

I hope DE helps Wesley.  Private school or not, let's keep our system of high ed from sustaining any further damage if we can.  We all stand to win or lose.

I strongly disagree that the best way to spend higher ed resources is to prop up everything instead of making the conscious choice to gracefully close some institutions and redirect the resources elsewhere.  Yes, having small schools available in the higher ed landscape is important, but keeping every single one that we currently have is akin to hoarding and will have similar overall results.

Nothing about Wesley stands out as being just an unfortunate year with a one-time blip.  An article this year in the college newspaper states that enrollment is down over the past five years to the point that they closed two dorms.  Faculty have not had raises in years and benefits have been cut.  Positions have been removed and programs have been discontinued.  Long-timers and administrators keep combating rumors that the institution is going to close or be bought out.

The college newspaper was alarmed enough about fall 2019 enrollment (under 1000 total students) to write a six-part series.  The first two parts have been published.  Students who have noticed that classes are tiny with even first-year classes having only 8 or 9 students and faculty have been asked to teach fewer classes.  Students point out that Wesley is expensive for what they get; staff point to retention initiatives that look a lot like community college support that don't scale well at small institutions and claim they will be recruiting in different places in an effort to get more students who can afford to come.

According to College Scorecard, Wesley has:

* a 50% first-to-second year retention rate
* a 30% 8-year graduation rate at an average cost of $24k/year and 56% of students are Pell eligible 
* of the 30% who graduate, 85% have loans averaging $30k
* of the top 10 fields of study, only one (radio, television, and digital communication) is not offered practically everywhere.

32 institutions of higher education exist within 50 miles of Wesley College according to College Scorecard.  While College Scorecard does not discriminate between 4-year, 2-year, and speciality institutions, Delaware is a pretty small state and some community colleges are within the radius. 

If the goal is to help struggling students get a better education, then putting the extra millions Wesley has requested into the community college system looks like a better use of resources than sending another couple million to Wesley.  For example, Delaware Technical Community College is in Dover (the same city as Wesley), has a couple thousand students, and has costs to the in-state student of under $5k/year.  Salem Community College, within the 50 mile radius in NJ, has about 1000 students with costs to the student of under $7k/year.  Lincoln University (a HCBU that might serve well the 43% of Wesley's enrollment that is African American) is within the 50 mile radius, so that spending money to send students there might be a good choice.

We will all lose if we continue to divert resources to keeping everything just as it is instead of mindfully putting enough resources in fewer places to achieve the goals.  Higher ed is not the only need in our society and therefore must be better about allocating limited resources.

[mamselle]

Thanks much for that last succinct observation, which I need to take to heart on a smaller scale in thinking about the mission sprawl in my own work.

M.

[spork]

Bethel University (MN): http://www.startribune.com/declining-enrollment-prompts-staff-budget-cuts-at-bethel-university/566126311/

[Hibush]

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/12/12/wesley-college-asks-state-funding

32 institutions of higher education exist within 50 miles of Wesley College according to College Scorecard.  While College Scorecard does not discriminate between 4-year, 2-year, and speciality institutions, Delaware is a pretty small state and some community colleges are within the radius. 

If the goal is to help struggling students get a better education, then putting the extra millions Wesley has requested into the community college system looks like a better use of resources than sending another couple million to Wesley.  For example, Delaware Technical Community College is in Dover (the same city as Wesley), has a couple thousand students, and has costs to the in-state student of under $5k/year.  Salem Community College, within the 50 mile radius in NJ, has about 1000 students with costs to the student of under $7k/year.  Lincoln University (a HCBU that might serve well the 43% of Wesley's enrollment that is African American) is within the 50 mile radius, so that spending money to send students there might be a good choice.

Delaware State Univ, also in Dover, has about 5,000 students and enrollment is on a steady increasing trajectory. Also HBCU, so an even stronger draw than Lincoln for Delaware AA residents. Cost is reasonable, distinctive offerings strong, retention solid. Those are signals that additional investment will have worthwhile returns.

[Wahoo Redux]

I strongly disagree that the best way to spend higher ed resources is to prop up everything instead of making the conscious choice to gracefully close some institutions and redirect the resources elsewhere. 

Higher ed is not the only need in our society and therefore must be better about allocating limited resources.

Fair enough.  And I will easily concede that your comments make a great deal of practical economic sense.

But I will also post what I have before, and that is that someday historians, economists, educators, philosophers, novelists, and politicians will be examining about our era, and I imagine a perennial question: 'How did one of the most educated, wealthy, and democratic societies in history come to value education so little that it allowed its system to deteriorate?' 

A tad idealistic, perhaps, and admittedly conjectural but I suspect true.

We will be the generation which allowed our educational systems to stumble or even fall because of a business and politics and social class resentments. 

The bigger question is how far will we allow it to go?

[Bede the Vulnerable]

What Wahoo said.

Half an hour ago I received a text from a good friend from grad school days.  His wife's LAC informed the faculty this morning that it is killing its English Department.  She's out. 

When is a college not a college?

[spork]

What Wahoo said.

Half an hour ago I received a text from a good friend from grad school days.  His wife's LAC informed the faculty this morning that it is killing its English Department.  She's out. 

When is a college not a college?

Name of the college? This kind of thing usually happens when there are financial problems. I don't know of any college flush with cash that would kill off a department like English.

[stemer]

I strongly disagree that the best way to spend higher ed resources is to prop up everything instead of making the conscious choice to gracefully close some institutions and redirect the resources elsewhere. 

Higher ed is not the only need in our society and therefore must be better about allocating limited resources.

<snip>

But I will also post what I have before, and that is that someday historians, economists, educators, philosophers, novelists, and politicians will be examining about our era, and I imagine a perennial question: 'How did one of the most educated, wealthy, and democratic societies in history come to value education so little that it allowed its system to deteriorate?' 

<snip

It did not deteriorate, it self-corrected.

[apl68]

I strongly disagree that the best way to spend higher ed resources is to prop up everything instead of making the conscious choice to gracefully close some institutions and redirect the resources elsewhere. 

Higher ed is not the only need in our society and therefore must be better about allocating limited resources.

<snip>

But I will also post what I have before, and that is that someday historians, economists, educators, philosophers, novelists, and politicians will be examining about our era, and I imagine a perennial question: 'How did one of the most educated, wealthy, and democratic societies in history come to value education so little that it allowed its system to deteriorate?' 

<snip

It did not deteriorate, it self-corrected.

Describing the closure of colleges, which is a wrenching event for the local and alumni communities affected, as a market self-correction sounds rather callous.  That said, it is true that quite a few institutions seem to have lost whatever distinctive educational mission they once had.  When a region--especially in a time of demographic decline--is thickly populated with such no-longer-distinctive schools, it does seem only to be expected that some will end up closing.  Much as I hate seeing SLACs close in principle--I know how I'd feel if it ever happened to my alma mater--some of these closings probably aren't such a terrible loss in the great scheme of things. 

What is a matter of concern is the way so many states have defunded higher education in recent years.  Even here, though, some retrenchment is surely unavoidable, given changes in demographics and the needs and perceived needs of the workforce.

[Wahoo Redux]

I strongly disagree that the best way to spend higher ed resources is to prop up everything instead of making the conscious choice to gracefully close some institutions and redirect the resources elsewhere. 

Higher ed is not the only need in our society and therefore must be better about allocating limited resources.

<snip>

But I will also post what I have before, and that is that someday historians, economists, educators, philosophers, novelists, and politicians will be examining about our era, and I imagine a perennial question: 'How did one of the most educated, wealthy, and democratic societies in history come to value education so little that it allowed its system to deteriorate?' 

<snip

It did not deteriorate, it self-corrected.

Perhaps. 

But semantics are largely pointless.

We are losing schools and departments and jobs and tenure and endangering whatever preeminence we might have. 

Wordplay however you want, it is still the dismantling / attenuation / dissolution /  devolving / deterioration / etc. of our higher ed system.  Every school we lose is an impoverishment. 

Look at any part of the world in which education is not a significant component.  Whatever else goes on in society, education is a social good.  Why we treat it as if it is expendable I cannot understand.

[mamselle]

I think sometimes there's a weird sort of cycle in which good is presented as bad, and bad, good.

At the moment, it seems as if the "social good" of education is being viewed as bad: elitist, arcane, boring, manipulative, and diabolically jesuitical.

The current "virtues" include ignorance (miscast as innocence), feral cunning, inventive savantism, and a kind of Rousseavian untutored savagery, paraded as " honesty."

Succinct phrases that right those beliefs are very necessary for the survival of logic and literacy.

We will all become the books we represent in Bradbury's hobo forest.

M.

[Bede the Vulnerable]

What Wahoo said.

Half an hour ago I received a text from a good friend from grad school days.  His wife's LAC informed the faculty this morning that it is killing its English Department.  She's out. 

When is a college not a college?

Name of the college? This kind of thing usually happens when there are financial problems. I don't know of any college flush with cash that would kill off a department like English.

I'll post the name of the college when this is officially announced.  But it's a small, religiously-affiliated college in the rural Midwest.  So you're exactly right:  It's a matter of finances. 

[inthestacks]

Mills College to Sell Shakespeare First Folio, Mozart Manuscript Amid Budget Woes

https://www.kqed.org/arts/13871311/mills-college-to-sell-shakespeare-first-folio-mozart-manuscript-amid-budget-woes

This seems incredibly short-sighted and a good way to alienate donors. (Among many others!)

[Hibush]

Mills College to Sell Shakespeare First Folio, Mozart Manuscript Amid Budget Woes

https://www.kqed.org/arts/13871311/mills-college-to-sell-shakespeare-first-folio-mozart-manuscript-amid-budget-woes

This seems incredibly short-sighted and a good way to alienate donors. (Among many others!)

They may be concerned about the fate of those documents in the event they have to close the library entirely. Better to place them with a reliable steward and get some operating funds. They have already gotten rid of most tt music faculty, to give an idea of how bad things are.