Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[marshwiggle]

It was a cool idea, and some other schools have taken on the "what is your question?" approach to majors/curriculum.
But Canadian don't have the private school tradition, and probably many Americans like the idea, but would rather go to a
similar place with more students and closer to home. Then of course there's the majority who think its way to hippy-dippy.

Since 60 per cent of Quest students are U.S. citizens, they will have the option to attend "a number of U.S. universities with similar programs that will fully recognize Quest program credits," the ministry said.

There you go.

While Quest's website says the school has a capacity of 750 students, B.C.'s ministry of post-secondary education and future skills puts current enrolment at 135.

Operating at about 1/6 of capacity? Yeah, that's not sustainable.

[selecter]

RIP Cardinal Stritch University

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2023/04/10/milwaukees-cardinal-stritch-university-shutting-down-operations/70101536007/


Their drop from '18 to '22 ... oh boy.

[spork]

RIP Cardinal Stritch University

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2023/04/10/milwaukees-cardinal-stritch-university-shutting-down-operations/70101536007/


Their drop from '18 to '22 ... oh boy.

In the years around the 2008 recession, Cardinal Stritch had an undergraduate FTE of ~ 2,900. Undergrad FTE enrollment declined by 100 to 400 per year since 2010, down to 700 in 2021. People have been increasingly choosing not to attend Cardinal Stritch for over a decade. And it's been consistently running deficits as a result.

[Trogdor]

And yet the article describes everyone at the college as "shocked".

nobody should be shocked that a college whose enrollment has dropped ~80% in 15 years is closing.

[selecter]

Obviously, that's true. But did they know it had dropped like that? I didn't. In some ways this one hits close to home, as I used to work at a relatively nearby and somewhat related school (and I have friends at this one.) We looked UP to Stritch, and were jealous. As near as I can tell, it was absolutely business as usual at Stritch in the last six or seven months. Just drowning the way people drown. Super quietly.

[marshwiggle]

Obviously, that's true. But did they know it had dropped like that?

It's hard to believe you'd miss that your classes had only 1/5 of the people they had just over a decade ago.

[selecter]

If you taught gen ed english, you likely saw zero change. Ditto almost any freshman class. If you were an adjunct, you saw whatever you saw.

I'm not defending oblivion, and certainly not defending the administration, but I'm imagining a lot of folks really ARE shocked they closed. It's almost like, during the autopsy, folks would say there was no sign of a struggle.

[Anselm]

I attended a Catholic high school near Chicago.  I got tons of mail from Midwestern schools but never from Cardinal Stritch.  I never knew about them until I read about them here.  I knew people who went to Marquette, Loyola, Depaul, Notre Dame, St. Ambrose, etc.  So, maybe there were not doing enough marketing?

[Ruralguy]

I'd be surprised if my college closes next year, but in 5 years if current unsustainable trends sustain? I wouldn't be surprised. I am not at all surprised that we have trouble hiring. I am sure some candidates run the numbers and don't see a bright future even though we have some great students, faculty and staff.

[Wahoo Redux]

Obviously, that's true. But did they know it had dropped like that?

It's hard to believe you'd miss that your classes had only 1/5 of the people they had just over a decade ago.

It does sometimes amaze me how disassociated and clueless some people----even people who love their jobs----are from the realities of our imperiled school.  Leaving the job at the office is both good and bad.

[selecter]

Right. Like boiling the frog. Both Stritch and Southern Vermont College (a closing I was MUCH closer too) just seemed to have tried to whistle past the graveyard. Most places TRY something, and at least wring their hands a little bit.

[secundem_artem]

I've always wondered how much of this kind of denial is the result of 2 intersecting issues. 

The first is that administrators tend not to be too forthcoming with the financial data of the university.  My uni has regular budget town halls that always have the theme of "keep moving, nothing to see here". 

On top of that, many faculty have little to no understanding of how multi-million dollar finance/budgets work.  I'm convinced that some faculty think the Dean or the President has a big envelope in their bottom desk drawer labeled "slush fund for when the faculty are causing problems".  i.e.  that there's ALWAYS more money if only the admin critters would spend it on the stuff WE think is important.

20-30 years of these things playing out and yup, people are actually shocked when dear old Alma Mater turns off the lights and locks the doors for the last time.

[selecter]

I've always thought a dean ought to educate faculty a bit on exactly this sort of thing, as I've heard department chairs say things like, "I know for a fact that our department brings in 2.2M per year!," when in fact they are -500K annually, once expenses are figured.

Then I spent some time as dean, and did next to nothing to educate faculty along those lines.

[Parasaurolophus]

Right. Like boiling the frog. Both Stritch and Southern Vermont College (a closing I was MUCH closer too) just seemed to have tried to whistle past the graveyard. Most places TRY something, and at least wring their hands a little bit.

It only works with lobotomized frogs. Uncut frogs jump.

Where that leaves the analogy, I'm not sure.

[selecter]

Nice metaphor.


The nonlobotomized frogs have somewhere to jump to, I guess.