Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[spork]

Lesley University

Sounds very bad, what with huge amounts of debt and declining enrollment.  What's most striking is how bad morale seems to be among both faculty and students toward the administration.  There have been multiple votes of no-confidence of the President and Board of Trustees, and students have been actively protesting poor living conditions and even telling prospective students to stay away.

Meanwhile they've eliminated their entire English faculty, and nearly all of their science and mathematics faculty.  So no STEM majors.  A big part of their brand seems to be "expressive therapies," which sounds like one of those narrow specialties that's no longer drawing many prospective students in today's environments.

Lesley is an urban version of those struggling rural colleges that started out as normal schools over a hundred years ago. Its brand has been declining since the 1980s, the arts programs came from a merger with an art school in the late 1990s, and it did not go co-ed at the undergraduate level until 2005. There are numerous colleges nearby where students can major in education, an increasingly unattractive career option but Lesley's historical bread and butter. Simmons and Wellesley offer the all-female undergraduate experience for the decreasing number of high school graduates who want it.

For a Southern version, look at Meredith College in Raleigh, which has apparently been selling off its endowment at a rate of a $3.5-7.0 million dollars per year even when it was getting federal pandemic aid.

[Puget]

Lesley University

Sounds very bad, what with huge amounts of debt and declining enrollment.  What's most striking is how bad morale seems to be among both faculty and students toward the administration.  There have been multiple votes of no-confidence of the President and Board of Trustees, and students have been actively protesting poor living conditions and even telling prospective students to stay away.

Meanwhile they've eliminated their entire English faculty, and nearly all of their science and mathematics faculty.  So no STEM majors.  A big part of their brand seems to be "expressive therapies," which sounds like one of those narrow specialties that's no longer drawing many prospective students in today's environments.

I was surprised to notice Lesley's small campus while walking around Cambridge not so long ago, having been unaware of its existence before, despite being a professor in the area (though not in Cambridge) for seven years. I doubt I'm alone, and therein lies the problem -- the Boston area is replete with institutions of higher education, some obviously very well known, others less so or not at all. In this mix, it is not at all clear what would attract students to Lesley in particular - the article keeps quoting their president talking about their "core mission" but never saying what that is exactly. The property is valuable, and I expect they will end up being acquired by one of the big fish for that.

[TreadingLife]

Lesley University

For a Southern version, look at Meredith College in Raleigh, which has apparently been selling off its endowment at a rate of a $3.5-7.0 million dollars per year even when it was getting federal pandemic aid.

Is there a way to see if this sell off is using the quasi(unrestricted) endowment vs a restricted endowment?  Both are bad. One is worse.

[spork]

Clarks Summit University has closed

[apl68]

Pennsylvania's colleges and universities really have been breaking a lot of bad news lately.

[kaysixteen]

Poorer and working class folks sadly can often be persuaded by grifters and other bad actors that kolij edyoocayshun iz baaad.

[Wahoo Redux]

Clarks Summit University has closed

Strangely enough, I find myself mourning this place, even though I had no idea it existed until yesterday.  Images online and its campus map shows a tiny rural campus with one large, kind of gothic-y central building which holds most of the classrooms, library, and administration; a newish gym; a music building; a little cafe; a seminary; and rec centers. The campus is bordered on one side by a series of small student houses and bordered on the other side by trees and a large pond.

The handful of faculty are an interesting mix of D.Min, MAs in traditional fields, and PhDs from Baptists seminaries along with a couple of PhDs in traditional fields from secular universities.

Their student body is listed on US News as 467 students.  They are ranked in the #151-167 range out of 178 Regional Universities North.

I would never want to attend or teach at a place like this myself, but what a shame that we are losing these unusual little campuses.  One can only say that losing 467 CSU graduates is not even a drop in the ocean of North American education. But I feel like we are losing one of those rare, beautiful butterflies or hummingbirds to extinction. Everything will go on like it had before, and almost no one will notice, but a tiny, unique creature just died.

Oh well. Education is becoming more restricted and more monolithic all the time----Congress is trying to make darn sure of both these----and that's fine for most folks out there.  Let it all burn.

[Ruralguy]

They arent that rare, though they are getting rarer. My school isnt quite this small, and it has endowment protection. But even with 1000 students, youd need a billion dollar endowment to not be tuition driven. What does that nean? Probably the demo cliff will kill off more butterflies,sadly.

[apl68]

Clarks Summit University has closed

Strangely enough, I find myself mourning this place, even though I had no idea it existed until yesterday.  Images online and its campus map shows a tiny rural campus with one large, kind of gothic-y central building which holds most of the classrooms, library, and administration; a newish gym; a music building; a little cafe; a seminary; and rec centers. The campus is bordered on one side by a series of small student houses and bordered on the other side by trees and a large pond.

The handful of faculty are an interesting mix of D.Min, MAs in traditional fields, and PhDs from Baptists seminaries along with a couple of PhDs in traditional fields from secular universities.

Their student body is listed on US News as 467 students.  They are ranked in the #151-167 range out of 178 Regional Universities North.

I would never want to attend or teach at a place like this myself, but what a shame that we are losing these unusual little campuses.  One can only say that losing 467 CSU graduates is not even a drop in the ocean of North American education. But I feel like we are losing one of those rare, beautiful butterflies or hummingbirds to extinction. Everything will go on like it had before, and almost no one will notice, but a tiny, unique creature just died.

That's a very apt metaphor, Wahoo.  There are all sorts of economic and cultural forces that are relentlessly driving the world toward monoculture and loss of diversity in all sorts of ways.  Some of these dying colleges never really amounted to much--they were local trade schools or something whose management got carried away with ambition.  But most of them meant a great deal to whatever communities they served, and served them well for many years.  In most cases the community will feel a real loss.  But they just can't keep things going in today's climate of demographic decline and ever-rising costs.

[spork]

More about Emerson College:

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2024/07/02/emerson-faculty-staff-and-students-left-in-the-dark-following-news-of-impending-layoffs/.

Must cut costs to hire more VPs!

[apl68]

More about Emerson College:

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2024/07/02/emerson-faculty-staff-and-students-left-in-the-dark-following-news-of-impending-layoffs/.

Must cut costs to hire more VPs!

So they have 205 managers--presumably there's no counting of administrative assistants and janitors as "administration" going on here--to supervise 244 faculty.  And they're spending almost two and a half million dollars more on admin than on actual, you know, teachers.  I don't know what's now considered a normal admin-to-faculty ratio, but that does sound egregious.

Commentators could both be right--the school may be very badly run, and the protests may have given them a black eye that is making prospective students have second thoughts.

[dismalist]

More about Emerson College:

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2024/07/02/emerson-faculty-staff-and-students-left-in-the-dark-following-news-of-impending-layoffs/.

Must cut costs to hire more VPs!

So they have 205 managers--presumably there's no counting of administrative assistants and janitors as "administration" going on here--to supervise 244 faculty.  And they're spending almost two and a half million dollars more on admin than on actual, you know, teachers.  I don't know what's now considered a normal admin-to-faculty ratio, but that does sound egregious.

Commentators could both be right--the school may be very badly run, and the protests may have given them a black eye that is making prospective students have second thoughts.

205:244 is just under 1:1 faculty to administrators. That's not unusual in private places, and may even be commendable.

[kaysixteen]

What could possibly be the need for or rationale for a 1:1 fac/ admin ratio?

[dismalist]

What could possibly be the need for or rationale for a 1:1 fac/ admin ratio?

The money's there. Somebody has to get it.

[Ancient Fellow]

What could possibly be the need for or rationale for a 1:1 fac/ admin ratio?

Borrowing from Austen, a baronet vice-president must be seen to live as a baronet vice-president! That new boat is not going to pay for itself.

;) I quite agree regarding absence of real rationale.