Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[apl68]

I hope that not-so-tiny schools like my alma mater still have a fighting chance.

This is where we have to do more than hope.

Not sure what I, personally, could do to try to save my alma mater.  I don't have much money to give them, nor any children to steer that way when they're ready for college.  I'm not an academic myself, so can do nothing at the professional level.

Public bailout support?  Well, I suppose we could try lobbying for that.  But Alma Mater is a denominationally-affiliated school that still, to at least some extent, takes its religious mission seriously.  Taking money from the public would raise separation of church and state issues.  It would also expose the school to the secular version of the Golden Rule--who has the gold makes the rules.  Federal funding would surely come at a price, and over time the demands would likely change. 

Our faith tradition still takes stances on certain issues that are very out of step with what's now the conventional wisdom in our broader culture.  If our colleges took money from the public, while still taking what we consider biblical stances on those issues, a lot of people would be up in arms about that.  And who's to say that down the line another administration might not order those schools to toe the line on these issues or face the consequences?  If a friendly presidential administration were to offer Alma Mater some support, I for one would urge them NOT to accept it so as not to become dependent on that money.  What the State gives the State can take away.

[Wahoo Redux]

Yeah, I totally understand.  As I've posted before, there is no silver bullet.  Some of these places are just going to die.

I hope, however, that we can start lobbying, not just for your alma mater, but for other schools for the long run---probably after the pandemic is over. 

I would like to see our professional associations more involved (I just renewed my membership in MLA because it started a fund for out of work adjuncts), our politicians more involved, our mega-rich more involved (write Bill Gates a letter---probably won't do any good, but you never know), our churches more involved, grassroots kick-starter programs more involved, the media more involved (I'm working on activist journalism right now), and yeah, alumni more involved----all those things academics know about but seem unable to access.

And I am hoping the incredibly erudite, creative people in academia will be able to agitate for their own industry, which doesn't happen very much.

[polly_mer]

CHE has a good article on institutional finances.


Wahoo, is the goal now to preserve small schools?  That's a very different goal than consolidating adjunct jobs.  You still won't like the answer that starts with closing many to redistribute students and faculty while continuing to change the mission to meet current student interests.

[Wahoo Redux]

CHE has a good article on institutional finances.


Wahoo, is the goal now to preserve small schools?  That's a very different goal than consolidating adjunct jobs.  You still won't like the answer that starts with closing many to redistribute students and faculty while continuing to change the mission to meet current student interests.

I posted elsewhere that if any of the small regional, financially challenged SLACs surrounding my healthy but mediocre R2 (and drawing almost exclusively on the same pool of uninspired, mediocre students) goes under it is very good news for us.  I worked on the side for one of these a couple of years ago when they were already emailing faculty about ideas for "alternative revenue streams."

This collapse of local, redundant, undistinguished SLACs, even one or two, would benefit me personally as my R2 job gets much more secure when options for regional students diminish.   

As long as we have a couple low-paid adjunct platoons teaching lower division writing classes I get to teach the more interesting advanced writing, business writing, and literature classes.

How should I feel about "the answer"?  Be honest, Polly. You've posted an article telling us what we know.  What is "the answer" you envision?

[marshwiggle]

CHE has a good article on institutional finances.


Wahoo, is the goal now to preserve small schools?  That's a very different goal than consolidating adjunct jobs.  You still won't like the answer that starts with closing many to redistribute students and faculty while continuing to change the mission to meet current student interests.

I posted elsewhere that if any of the small regional, financially challenged SLACs surrounding my healthy but mediocre R2 (and drawing almost exclusively on the same pool of uninspired, mediocre students) goes under it is very good news for us.  I worked on the side for one of these a couple of years ago when they were already emailing faculty about ideas for "alternative revenue streams."

This collapse of local, redundant, undistinguished SLACs, even one or two, would benefit me personally as my R2 job gets much more secure when options for regional students diminish.   

I'm with Polly on the question of what your priorities are. Everything above is conditional, so it's not clear whether you think it ought to happen. One of my frustrations in discussions with Mahaggony is that I can never get a clear idea of his vision for what the "ideal" academic workforce should be.

A decode or two ago here the local school board was talking about how high schools of under 1000 students were not very viable, since they couldn't offer the range of courses or extracurricular activities of bigger schools. For a post-secondary institution, that has got to be magnified.

[apostrophe]

And it's the flagship university of the state, right?

No. The flagship is in Fayetteville.

Yes, Fayetteville is the flagship school.  UALR has always been considered a strong #2 school in the Arkansas public higher education world.  But Arkansas, like most states, has seen a decline in the number of high school graduates.  This has hit some schools harder than others.  UALR, for whatever reason, has been particularly hard hit.

I am somewhat comforted to learn it's #2 but am still taken aback by the proposed cuts/reductions for the second most important public school. Where are other people going to school?

Googling ran into paywalls, but I spotted a line from a NYTimes article from 2016 reporting that Arkansas takes more out-of-state students than it sends out. US News says 31% of residents have bachelor's degrees. Low percentage, but I can't draw any conclusions.

[tuxthepenguin]

Perhaps more people need to know that approximately 40% of everyone who starts college drops out before earning a degree.

I don't know if this was in response to my earlier comment, but students drop out for many reasons. If they're not talented enough for college, they're usually gone after one year. As a percentage of all students in the university at a point in time, the ones that don't have the talent is very small, even if 40% of those that start are terrible.

[apl68]

And it's the flagship university of the state, right?

No. The flagship is in Fayetteville.

Yes, Fayetteville is the flagship school.  UALR has always been considered a strong #2 school in the Arkansas public higher education world.  But Arkansas, like most states, has seen a decline in the number of high school graduates.  This has hit some schools harder than others.  UALR, for whatever reason, has been particularly hard hit.

I am somewhat comforted to learn it's #2 but am still taken aback by the proposed cuts/reductions for the second most important public school. Where are other people going to school?

Don't know, but I suspect that Fayetteville's greater popularity with our declining number of students has a lot to do with the fact that Fayetteville is in a nice college town, while UALR is located in a less-than-desirable part of Little Rock. 

And yes, we are a rural state with a relatively low percentage of college degree holders.

[Hibush]

I suspect that Fayetteville's greater popularity with our declining number of students has a lot to do with the fact that Fayetteville is in a nice college town, while UALR is located in a less-than-desirable part of Little Rock. 

Good to read that you don't attribute the difference to football.

[polly_mer]

How should I feel about "the answer"?  Be honest, Polly. You've posted an article telling us what we know.  What is "the answer" you envision?

What goal or related goals are we trying to achieve?  I ask because it's been years of discussion and I can identify multiple, conflicting goals that you have expressed.  To list just a few recent ones:

* Create additional good enough jobs for specific fields where many graduate holders want to be faculty and tend to end up as adjuncts
* Eliminate the bad adjunct jobs so people can't take them
* Promote the liberal arts as "the" college degree in contrast to job training
* Save the liberal arts at large by preserving everything we currently have
* Save the variety of higher ed institutions by whatever means necessary
* Ensure that students are getting what they are paying for by changing who is teaching the general education classes

I can think of others that would be putting words in your mouth, but it's pretty clear that you would agree with the sentiment if not the actual words.

You have never liked the solution that goes:

* Accept that students have voted with their feet for decades so that most college degree holders are in professional programs like nursing, engineering, education, and social work or are in job-related programs like business or criminal justice.  Holding up the liberal arts (1/3 major, 1/3 gen ed, 1/3 electives) as a model of the standard student ignores how most students go through college.  First up, we change the standard college models to reflect how most students go through college.

* Ditch college general education in favor of better K-12 education.  Because most of us who are well into middle age have college degrees that aren't in the liberal arts and have often changed careers multiple times, any assertion that one must have a liberal arts education instead of a professional preparation tend to be discounted.  We are likely to be supportive of the idea that literature, history, philosophy, and other humanities as areas of human knowledge are important, but we are very skeptical that checklist general education that only require a couple total humanities courses are somehow teaching people what they need to know in those areas.  Putting the resources into much better K-12 education is the solution to the problem of needing a population who has that relevant knowledge and will continue to learn through adulthood.

* Limit college to folks who show they will benefit from attending at the time of enrollment.  Reducing the college going population to who will make good use of the resources and has demonstrated an interest as well as some ability in college would do a lot to make the resources stretch.  Changing how college is funded would help as long as we look carefully at how our first-world peers deal with the problems of pick at most two from (a) cheap/free, (b) open to all who wish to try, and (c) high quality.  College shouldn't be only for those with money, but we do need to ensure that those without personal money are in good positions to make use of the courses being taught this term instead of working more-than-full-time jobs while having substantial care-taking duties.

* Modify college standard practices based on the current known population.  Why is four years of more-than-the-minimum-full-time attendance (12 credits per semester for financial aid, but averaging at least 15 credits per term is required to graduate in four years for a 120 credit degree) standard when so many 18 year olds start as part-time students and intend to stay that way because of their complicated lives?  Changing the expected curriculum to accommodate multiple standard paths through various degrees would help a lot.  Building on the general education elimination, having people spend their intro time in areas where they have declared a major, perhaps as shadowing/observations/internships/co-ops, would both help people make good decisions earlier and give relevant experience as well as formal classroom experience.

* Purposely examining current institutions and their missions for consolidation/closing/updating/additional targeted support instead of just letting whoever ran out of money first close would be a good way to ensure we are serving all the students.  There is a place for some of the institutions that will give in-person education in far flung places or have their mission as serving those who aren't well served by huge institutions that rely on good-enough prepared students.  We definitely don't need all the ones we have and some should have been closed years ago to free up students, faculty, and resources to where they would do more good.

* There's definitely a place for a good liberal arts education, but that's a specialty mission of certain institutions, not the default for everywhere that is already honored more by word than by observable action.  Even to the end, MacMurray lists itself as upholding the liberal arts and there's just no way that could possibly be true if this semester is any indication of the past few years.

I know Wahoo won't like this solution because it makes clear that most people who have humanities graduate degrees who want academic jobs of any kind can't have them any more.  The academic job slots go to fields where student demand is high and we're having trouble getting enough qualified faculty.  The things Wahoo wants to save are the very things that must be cut first to redirect resources into what people need and for which they will pay instead of what some academics want for them that looks a lot like job preservation more than high educational standards.

[Wahoo Redux]

OMG Polly, when do you have the time to write all these?

Let me respond as best I can piecemeal as I try to get other stuff done.

How should I feel about "the answer"?  Be honest, Polly. You've posted an article telling us what we know.  What is "the answer" you envision?

What goal or related goals are we trying to achieve?  I ask because it's been years of discussion and I can identify multiple, conflicting goals that you have expressed.  To list just a few recent ones:

* Create additional good enough jobs for specific fields where many graduate holders want to be faculty and tend to end up as adjuncts - YES

* Eliminate the bad adjunct jobs so people can't take them - YES, more or less.  I hadn't thought of them in quite those terms.

* Promote the liberal arts as "the" college degree in contrast to job training - NO. AT LEAST THAT IS NOT THE WAY I THINK ABOUT IT AND IT'S NOT THE WAY A LOT OF PEOPLE THINK OF IT  We know that most students go to college because of career concerns.  But college does more than just train people for specific jobs.  If job training was the singular goal of college you could train, say, underwriters in about 6 months, maybe less including grammar, report & business-letter format; ERISA, & HIPAA laws; basic decimals for calculating premium; basic Microsoft Office programs; and basic, accounting, HR & management skills should our student progress up the corporate ladder.  We could train people to do a "job" in a very short time and for very little money.  Is that what we want from a college education?

* Save the liberal arts at large by preserving everything we currently have - NO.  Times change, education changes.  But neither do I want the college core gutted.  I believe that a lot of people have been radicalized about college.  I believe it started with student revolt in the '60s and morphed into a political ax to grind.  And I think you are wrong about the effect all these "checked boxes" have on students.  I think they are important.  For instance, in this day and age I cannot comprehend gutting language and history requirements----if there is a time to be aware of other cultures and the forces of history, it is now.  Poly Sci and sociology too.

* Save the variety of higher ed institutions by whatever means necessary[/s] - ZEALOUSLY OVERSTATED (naughty! naughty!)  I would like to see America use its massive wealth to voluntarily save as many of our colleges as possible.  On this I have been pretty clear. We take higher ed for granted.  Someday we will regret that.

* Ensure that students are getting what they are paying for by changing who is teaching the general education classes - MORE OF LESS.

[marshwiggle]

I would like to see America use its massive wealth to voluntarily save as many of our colleges as possible.  On this I have been pretty clear. We take higher ed for granted.  Someday we will regret that.

What does that even mean???? Until enrollment drops by 20%? 50%? 90%? Is there any objective criterion or set of criteria that you would accept to determine when it's time to pull the plug? Everything I've seen from you suggests there's never a time when you're not going to blame "government" or someone else for the failure of an institution to attract enough students to make it viable.

[Wahoo Redux]

* Accept that students have voted with their feet for decades so that most college degree holders are in professional programs like nursing, engineering, education, and social work or are in job-related programs like business or criminal justice.  Holding up the liberal arts (1/3 major, 1/3 gen ed, 1/3 electives) as a model of the standard student ignores how most students go through college.  First up, we change the standard college models to reflect how most students go through college.

Sometimes, Polly, when we are too uptight about an issue or concern, we either hear what we want other people to say instead of what they really say, or we hear our own obsessions echoed back to us. 

Have I ever denied the exodus from traditional lib arts degrees?

Part of the issue is the misconceptions about lib arts degrees and career health, which has been dealt with at length here and elsewhere.

The larger part of the issue, however, I responded to above.  What do you want from a college degree?  I for one do not want to see an army of worker ants marching out with degrees in hand.   If Wall Street wants Trump University, let them reopen it.  Lib arts trains us broadly.  For instance, I gently castigated a group of nice young men in business writing class who wrote a proposal about eliminating environmental science.  I reminded them that ecology is a big concern for business in this day an age; having an introduction to environmental science is actually a very good idea.  This is what college is now. I'd hate to see that vanish.

* Ditch college general education in favor of better K-12 education.  Because most of us who are well into middle age have college degrees that aren't in the liberal arts and have often changed careers multiple times, any assertion that one must have a liberal arts education instead of a professional preparation tend to be discounted.  We are likely to be supportive of the idea that literature, history, philosophy, and other humanities as areas of human knowledge are important, but we are very skeptical that checklist general education that only require a couple total humanities courses are somehow teaching people what they need to know in those areas.  Putting the resources into much better K-12 education is the solution to the problem of needing a population who has that relevant knowledge and will continue to learn through adulthood.

Ha!  If you've got the magic wand to recalibrate secondary ed, then wave it.  Zap those property taxes right into a healthy balance that gives the truly massive, truly diverse, truly inequitable nation of secondary education the upgrade you envision.

This is where I begin to think you are being disingenuous, Polly.  If it is quixotic to revive higher ed, it is triply quixotic to turn American education into a college equivalent.  If you are talking about a decade long restructuring of secondary ed (which is what we are talking about, right?), I am talking about a decades long revival of higher ed starting now before it is too late.  As much great info as you provide, and as smart and as informed as you are, you're bitter and you'd like to pull down the Walls of Jericho surrounding the Tower.

Or, how about this, let's invest in all levels of education!  America is already falling behind other industrial countries in the world according to questionable standardized testing.  We're in danger of falling back even farther.  Do you think you are helping the cause?

[marshwiggle]

The larger part of the issue, however, I responded to above.  What do you want from a college degree?  I for one do not want to see an army of worker ants marching out with degrees in hand.   If Wall Street wants Trump University, let them reopen it.  Lib arts trains us broadly.  For instance, I gently castigated a group of nice young men in business writing class who wrote a proposal about eliminating environmental science.  I reminded them that ecology is a big concern for business in this day an age; having an introduction to environmental science is actually a very good idea.  This is what college is now. I'd hate to see that vanish.

This is a hole with no bottom. Right now, an introduction to microbiology and epidemiology would be really helpful. Also, an introduction to economics to understand global supply chains. During Hurrucane Katrina meteorology and civil engineering would have been great. Around 9/11 religious history. When the Arab spring happened some political sience would have helped to understand those systems..........

There is no end to what would be really useful for students to have some knowledge of; they could take an "introduction" to 40 different topics and nothing else over 4 years and have useful general knowledge but nothing close to a degree.

The question is who ought to decide which things students "have to" be introduced to outside the areas they want to study. Anyone who thinks themselves entitled to make that call for everyone else probably shouldn't be in a position of that much power.

[Wahoo Redux]

* Limit college to folks who show they will benefit from attending at the time of enrollment.  Reducing the college going population to who will make good use of the resources and has demonstrated an interest as well as some ability in college would do a lot to make the resources stretch.  Changing how college is funded would help as long as we look carefully at how our first-world peers deal with the problems of pick at most two from (a) cheap/free, (b) open to all who wish to try, and (c) high quality.  College shouldn't be only for those with money, but we do need to ensure that those without personal money are in good positions to make use of the courses being taught this term instead of working more-than-full-time jobs while having substantial care-taking duties.

Some of this was a bit difficult in syntactic terms so I am not sure exactly what you are suggesting.  I didn't follow the "problem of pick" bit, but maybe that's just my bad.

I guess you are talking about raising admission standards.  Sure.  Maybe.  There are problems with that, of course.  You will have the very simple problem of telling tax payers that their children can't go to University of X or their local CC because their children will not benefit at the time of enrollment----you are familiar with UW-Madison and their boondoggles with admissions, I take it. 

And how are you going to determine who "will benefit from attending at the time of enrollment" anyway?   Sometimes some weirdo suggests psychometric testing for various degree programs---is that what you are talking about? 

As it is now, virtually anyone can take a shot at college, at least theoretically. Even if one is a very bad student with personal problems, one can enroll at a CC or an open-enrollment institution like the one I teach at. I don't see how that is a problem, even given student loan debt (which I know a bit about personally) and graduation rates (with a deceptive mean).  People have the right to make choices, even if they are ultimately bad choices. 

It's axiomatic that our resources would go farther if only "college material" students applied for college and the great unwashed did unwashed things with their lives, but you've now limited personal choice.

People have the right to try to get an education whether or not other people think they should, particularly when tax dollars pay for the local CC or R2 or DIII oven-enrollment teaching colleges as well as the public ivies or what have you.  We've talked about this before.  Many people bloom in college, many more simply get through but have a degree at the end even if it appears that would not "benefit from attending at the time of enrollment." 

I understand you, like Marty Nemko, thinks one answer is professionalization through things like internships and apprenticeships----and sure, why not?  But, with all due respect, who are you to tell somebody they can't go to college because of some metric indicating that they will not "benefit from attending at the time of enrollment"?

I'm not sure what you are getting at about "personal money" there at the end.  You want to get more low-SES students?  Fine with me.  But that's gonna be expensive.  Better do better faculty hiring.