Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[apl68]

An article on what went wrong with University of the Arts:


https://www.phillymag.com/news/2024/08/08/uarts-philadelphia-closure?utm_source=pocket_discover


Still a lot of questions that remain to be answered.  They seem to have been a little like polly's "Super Dinky," where everybody was kind of used to running on a shoestring and figuring they could always make out somehow.  And they apparently started going downhill when former president David Yager came in in 2016 with big plans and started spending and borrowing lots of money.  And annoyed a lot of people.  Among other things, he was apparently guilty of talking about a long-term endowment donation as if it were a new lump-sum bequest.

[aprof]

Wittenberg in Ohio is cutting 60% of the faculty for 2025-26. That sounds dire.

Deets:

• 1,288 undergraduate students and 45 graduate students
• 25 intercollegiate athletic teams in NCAA Division III.
• Finished $50 million athletic complex in 2019.
• $17 million operating deficit last year on $96 million budget.
• Only 25% of expenses are salaries
• Big cuts in political science, women's studies and sociology
• Faculty will be reduced from 97 to 40 after the coming academic year.
• Staff will be reduced during the coming year.
• AAUP says it is unethical to admit current matriculating class given the reduced offerings.

This college is approximately the size of my department.  Maybe we should build our own $50 M athletic complex.

[Ruralguy]

A number of R1 departments *have* built 50 million dollar facilities, but not athletic facilities.

[Hibush]

A number of R1 departments *have* built 50 million dollar facilities, but not athletic facilities.

But if their alumni showed the necessary support for a departmental athletic facility, it is within the realm of possibility. They would have to forego Federal research-facility grants.

[Mobius]

$50 million gets you a smaller academic building.

[Ruralguy]

Yeah, 50 million is a bit chump-changey for an R1 these days. Even our last academic building (at a 100-ish ranked SLAC) that went up bumped right up against thus number.

[Wahoo Redux]

Humanities courses have been decertified as gen ed courses except for composition; the rational is rationing----the humanities had too many gen ed courses, the gen eds need to be spread around.

Chemistry is not allowed to hire any new professors.

Languages will now be taught by Rosetta Stone, although the dean claims there will be a classroom component.

In the local newspaper today, the provost literally compared the school to a manufacturing plant and to education to an assembly line for workers----literally.

[kaysixteen]

I would be very interested to learn how the Rosetta Stone-run language classes work.  RS itself is simply inadequate to serve as a whole-orbed college fl class.

[marshwiggle]

I would be very interested to learn how the Rosetta Stone-run language classes work.  RS itself is simply inadequate to serve as a whole-orbed college fl class.

Maybe not so much for an introductory class where students are only taking it because they have to. I don't know what percentage of students that would be, but for that group it may be more popular, and maybe even more productive.

[apl68]

I recall my mother referring to some use of Rosetta Stone late in her career as a college Spanish teacher in the 2010s.  She spoke of it as a useful tool, but it was only a supplement to actual in-person language classes.  I never did get any details from her on how, exactly, they used it. 

[AmLitHist]

Yeah, 50 million is a bit chump-changey for an R1 these days. Even our last academic building (at a 100-ish ranked SLAC) that went up bumped right up against thus number.

Oh, that's just bush league. Our CC district has been spending money like a drunken sailor with multiple new buildings going up on all four campuses for a couple of years now. At my location, there are two in progress right now--one at a cost of $62.4M, the other $62.1M, before the inevitable cost overruns. More will be soon to come, as my current building and several others are scheduled to be razed starting next summer. 

Why, yes, TPTB here absolutely have lost their f&*$ing minds. We're building bigger and faster than local elite Washington U, since we're clearly in their league /s/. Harvard by the Highway: that's us.

If you build it, they will come. Uh-huh. Yes, enrollment is up 8% this fall--but not connected to ANY of those buildings; rather, we're poaching high school students, as low as sophomore year, for dual enrollment (with the vast majority of those extremely un/der-prepared and immature students either dropping the classes, earning D/F grades, or barely scraping by with the lowest possible Cs). And of course the sophistication and tenor of our student body--which overall had been pretty darn good over the years, for a CC--has gone to hell with the infusion of the little dears.

[aprof]

Yeah, 50 million is a bit chump-changey for an R1 these days. Even our last academic building (at a 100-ish ranked SLAC) that went up bumped right up against thus number.

Yes, I agree that it is not significant in the scope of all buildings but my point is that this is a sports complex rather than something that serves the academic mission of the university.  I just found the idea of this being roughly equivalent to my department building its own sports complex rather amusing.

[spork]

St. Augustine's has delayed the start of its fall semester by two weeks, supposedly because of storm damage:

https://www.st-aug.edu/notice/delayed-start-to-fall-2024/

[Mobius]

Not looking good.

"We will be finalizing major funding that will allow us to pay overdue student refunds and staff salaries from last semester."

Plus, they need cash from students staying in dorms.

St. Augustine's has delayed the start of its fall semester by two weeks, supposedly because of storm damage:

https://www.st-aug.edu/notice/delayed-start-to-fall-2024/

[BadWolf]

Not looking good.

"We will be finalizing major funding that will allow us to pay overdue student refunds and staff salaries from last semester."

Plus, they need cash from students staying in dorms.

St. Augustine's has delayed the start of its fall semester by two weeks, supposedly because of storm damage:

https://www.st-aug.edu/notice/delayed-start-to-fall-2024/

So I assumed they were in Florida. Nope, HBCU in Raleigh. They are not long for this world.