Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[apl68]

It's kind of amazing that they're even still trying, after everything that has happened.  And that the accrediting agency restored their accreditation. 

[spork]

It's kind of amazing that they're even still trying, after everything that has happened.  And that the accrediting agency restored their accreditation. 

St. Augustine's previous "leadership team" racked up $32 million in debt on an annual budget of about the same size. The IRS has placed liens on the school for non-payment of taxes that total ~ $10 million. Earlier this year the school missed payroll and did not disburse financial aid to students.

The organization was looted by administrators and trustees who ought to be imprisoned for financial crimes. But that's not going to save it. The damage is done. Time to close up shop.

[apl68]

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it was more a case of epic incompetence than malfeasance.  They can sometimes be hard to tell apart at a glance.  But yeah, you do have to suspect that there was some serious sketchy stuff going on.

[poiuy]

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it was more a case of epic incompetence than malfeasance.  They can sometimes be hard to tell apart at a glance.  But yeah, you do have to suspect that there was some serious sketchy stuff going on.

Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"

[kaysixteen]

Perhaps in general Hanlon has a point, but this still does not obviate the need, in each individual case like this one, for a serious, impartial, outside legal investigation to be undertaken.

[apl68]

Perhaps in general Hanlon has a point, but this still does not obviate the need, in each individual case like this one, for a serious, impartial, outside legal investigation to be undertaken.

Very true.

[lightning]

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it was more a case of epic incompetence than malfeasance.  They can sometimes be hard to tell apart at a glance.  But yeah, you do have to suspect that there was some serious sketchy stuff going on.

Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"

Perhaps in general Hanlon has a point, but this still does not obviate the need, in each individual case like this one, for a serious, impartial, outside legal investigation to be undertaken.

I'd rather loosely apply Occam's razor.

Although it would be hard to get a conviction, if we assume malfeasance first, the admin mess behind St. Augustine will be simpler to untangle, the explanations will be clearer, and accountability will be streamlined (because those idiots that ran St. Augustine into the grave will be motivated to stay out of jail and save their resumes for their next job).

Most people convicted of corruption, didn't think they were doing anything wrong.

If we assume incompetence, the admins will probably not be held accountable, and no one will know what really went down (although we will have a nice big report that no one will really read).

[apl68]

It could have been a combination of the two.  Crooks like to take advantage of the sloppy situation created by incompetence.  Incompetent administrators may fail to catch the crooks in their midst.

[ciao_yall]

People convicted of corruption rarely think they did anything wrong because they rationalize it.

And it's surprising how incompetent people are. I was once casually talking to a coworker and accidentally gave her an idea on how to steal from the company.

Yes, she did it because not only were our systems that bad, but our colleagues didn't notice clear red flags.

She got caught because she panicked and, in trying to cover ther tracks accidentally exposed herself to the bank.

[apl68]

It's why even those of us who are honest and competent have to put up with annual audits, having to have all your checks signed by somebody else, etc.  Even libraries have to deal with dishonesty.  We had an employee that I suspected of petty cash theft before we revised our procedures to keep a better eye on the cash.  She quit before she could be fired. 

And then there was the colleague who learned, after taking over a small-town library from a very long-serving predecessor, that the predecessor had apparently been in the habit of using the company credit card for assorted personal purchases.  She also had to be made to hand over a substantial number of books purchased by the library and never cataloged, that had for some reason resided at her house.  In her case, she probably rationalized it by coming to feel, over the decades, that the library was kind of her business, and she was entitled.  Maybe she felt it was a justified way of stretching her pay (She made a bit more than I did, at an even smaller institution).

It's hard to get beyond petty peculation in a library setting.  I know of a place in a certain state due south of ours, which has a reputation for such things, where small-town librarians were paying themselves ludicrously inflated salaries, with the justification to their trustees that colleagues--who worked in much, much larger systems--were getting them. 

And I know of a director in our state who died and left behind a shocking level of institutional debt.  That really does seem to have been incompetence rather than theft.  He gained himself a reputation as a brilliant change agent and achiever...but it was all done with totally unsustainable borrowing that his Board of Trustees somehow let him get away with.  Sounds a lot like some things we've seen on this thread.

[jimbogumbo]

More on West Virginia: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/tenure/2024/09/09/year-after-cuts-wv-still-bleeding-faculty-administrators

[Hibush]

The article on WVU has a couple examples of the spousal hiring, something "remote" campuses have to rely on to get good faculty. When one spouse is let go, the other leaves also. That is increasing the faculty attrition.

The reporter wasn't able to get faculty rosters from a couple years ago and now for the programs covered (law and Appalachian studies), and there seems to be some effort by WVU administrators to be vague.

It appears that nobody is setting a new goal and leading the way. The provost who led the downsizing, and had a particular vision for a reconfigured university has already left. The president who promoted it is out at the end of this academic year. A couple other senior administrator who might have understood the implementation left as well. Who will step up to be the defacto visionary?

[apl68]

This article was published last year, in response to what happened at WVU at that time.  But it makes a good case that this sort of program-slashing is often done in a very shortsighted manner.


https://newrepublic.com/article/176202/west-virginia-university-higher-education-enrollment-cliff-cuts

[spork]

This article was published last year, in response to what happened at WVU at that time.  But it makes a good case that this sort of program-slashing is often done in a very shortsighted manner.


https://newrepublic.com/article/176202/west-virginia-university-higher-education-enrollment-cliff-cuts

The most efficient solution is to fire all faculty members so that more non-teaching staff can be hired:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/05/bureaucratic-bloat-eating-american-universities-inside/678324/

[bio-nonymous]

This article was published last year, in response to what happened at WVU at that time.  But it makes a good case that this sort of program-slashing is often done in a very shortsighted manner.


https://newrepublic.com/article/176202/west-virginia-university-higher-education-enrollment-cliff-cuts

The most efficient solution is to fire all faculty members so that more non-teaching staff can be hired:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/05/bureaucratic-bloat-eating-american-universities-inside/678324/

I couldn't read the whole thing through the paywall, but the first paragraph was telling. It puts numbers (600% increase in admins versus a net decline in faculty over ~30 years) in one place to what many of us suspect at our own institutions. Indeed we are told to "do more with less" so that the admins can hire more staff!