Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[Hibush]

Related is New Mexico State cutting budget so that faculty are again talking unionization.

The history professor fails to mention that NMSU graduates about 10 new bachelor degrees every year along with about 10 master's degrees.  Per College Scorecard, the new history undergrads make about a thousand dollars more than the median debt at a whopping $19k/year for income.. Yep, that sounds so great compared to the 180 new BSN graduates making a median of $55k, the 120 new criminal justice bachelor degrees making a median of $28k, or the 130 new mechanical engineers making a median of $62k.

The main union organizer admits that he does not understand the institutional finances, but is aware that faculty bring in grants. I suspect that a much deeper understanding to university finances will be needed in orgder to negotiate successfully on behalf of the future faculty union. They are dealing with a university president who thought it was a good idea to say "the best people need to get on the bus'" when talking faculty and staff layoffs. I am sure there are faculty who can seriously outmatch the administrations brilliance.

[polly_mer]

I don't know about faculty brilliance working at NMSU where student enrollment has been declining, cheaper in-state schools exist with better outcomes, and now online is really a thing.

NMSU is an OK school, but it's one of the OK schools I expect to not weather the crisis well on the teaching undergrad side.  They are one of the three research universities in NM (UNM, New Mexico Tech) as an R2, but it's not really a research powerhouse compared to the national labs and other science facilities in the state.

[Aster]

NMSU is fantastically popular with its undergraduate body and alumni. The university is the cultural hub for the small city of Las Cruces, which itself is a gorgeous place to live and work. Population in the area has been steadily growing for a long time. You don't go to NMSU to take online courses in the basement. You go to NMSU to avail yourselves to a world-class academic enrichment experience at cheap public university prices. If you've visited Las Cruces anytime in the last 20 years, you know what I mean.

But.... NMSU also has a long track record with questionable (if not terrible) senior administrators and political appointees.

And the state of New Mexico has the bizarre tendency to serve as a hiring magnet for disgraced/criminal/sketchy senior staffers. Basically, folks that get fired in other states for incompetence or criminal mischief tend tend to find themselves new employment in New Mexico, often at senior staff positions within its public universities. It's as if the HR departments for the state of New Mexico don't ever bother performing background searches on their applicants. I have remarked on this issue numerous times to one of my colleagues who used to work at NMSU, and he just sighed every time.

Given all I've read in the news about NMSU over the years, I'm much more inclined to believe what NMSU faculty print in the news, over what the latest appointed politi-wonk leader of NMSU prints in the news. And yes, the university should definitely unionize.

[jimbogumbo]

I don't know about faculty brilliance working at NMSU where student enrollment has been declining, cheaper in-state schools exist with better outcomes, and now online is really a thing.

NMSU is an OK school, but it's one of the OK schools I expect to not weather the crisis well on the teaching undergrad side.  They are one of the three research universities in NM (UNM, New Mexico Tech) as an R2, but it's not really a research powerhouse compared to the national labs and other science facilities in the state.

Perhaps you and Hibush hold quite different opinions as to the brilliance level of the administration?

[polly_mer]

You go to NMSU to avail yourselves to a world-class academic enrichment experience at cheap public university prices.

No...just no.

You go to NMSU because it's close.

You go to NMSU because it's cheap.

You go to NMSU because you don't know what a real university education looks like and it's good enough for government work.

You go to NMSU because it's a good enough degree for the fields where credentials are a thing.

If you really, really want a world-class university education, NMSU does not rank on the list and, for many fields, even UNM as the flagship isn't on the list.

I doubt that a faculty union is really what NMSU needs, especially if it's the humanities folks who are most worried about their jobs.

Las Cruces is not a small town.  It's the second largest city in New Mexico and, at 100k, it's just outside the top 300 most populated cities in the US, just like South Bend, Indiana.

[Hibush]

I don't know about faculty brilliance working at NMSU where student enrollment has been declining, cheaper in-state schools exist with better outcomes, and now online is really a thing.

NMSU is an OK school, but it's one of the OK schools I expect to not weather the crisis well on the teaching undergrad side.  They are one of the three research universities in NM (UNM, New Mexico Tech) as an R2, but it's not really a research powerhouse compared to the national labs and other science facilities in the state.

Perhaps you and Hibush hold quite different opinions as to the brilliance level of the administration?

I suspect that Polly, Aster and I agree that the administrators are world-class dolts, if we were to be charitable. The faculty:administrator-brilliance ratio may be a matter of contention.

[fast_and_bulbous]

I hereby declare: All colleges are in dire financial straits.

Now we need a thread: Colleges that once were.

[quasihumanist]

I don't know about faculty brilliance working at NMSU where student enrollment has been declining, cheaper in-state schools exist with better outcomes, and now online is really a thing.

NMSU is an OK school, but it's one of the OK schools I expect to not weather the crisis well on the teaching undergrad side.  They are one of the three research universities in NM (UNM, New Mexico Tech) as an R2, but it's not really a research powerhouse compared to the national labs and other science facilities in the state.

Perhaps you and Hibush hold quite different opinions as to the brilliance level of the administration?

I suspect that Polly, Aster and I agree that the administrators are world-class dolts, if we were to be charitable. The faculty:administrator-brilliance ratio may be a matter of contention.

Faculty brilliance is irrelevant.  It is simply impossible to deliver a world-class education with a 17:1 faculty-student ratio, especially when a good deal of the faculty's time needs to be spent on remediation for all the students who aren't really college-ready.  It doesn't matter how brilliant the faculty are.

[marshwiggle]

I don't know about faculty brilliance working at NMSU where student enrollment has been declining, cheaper in-state schools exist with better outcomes, and now online is really a thing.

NMSU is an OK school, but it's one of the OK schools I expect to not weather the crisis well on the teaching undergrad side.  They are one of the three research universities in NM (UNM, New Mexico Tech) as an R2, but it's not really a research powerhouse compared to the national labs and other science facilities in the state.

Perhaps you and Hibush hold quite different opinions as to the brilliance level of the administration?

I suspect that Polly, Aster and I agree that the administrators are world-class dolts, if we were to be charitable. The faculty:administrator-brilliance ratio may be a matter of contention.

Faculty brilliance is irrelevant.  It is simply impossible to deliver a world-class education with a 17:1 faculty-student ratio, especially when a good deal of the faculty's time needs to be spent on remediation for all the students who aren't really college-ready.  It doesn't matter how brilliant the faculty are.

Did you mean that the other way around? !7 faculty for every student seems like it should allow a lot of fine tuning. (Although, on the other hand, the faculty bickering over how and what to teach could bring the whole system crashing down.)

[polly_mer]

The question is how the faculty are distributed.

History was mentioned in the article and I have a vested interest in mechanical engineering.

History doesn't say how many majors on the website, but 14 graduates*4 years is about 60 students.  The website has 8 full-time faculty and 4 'college track' faculty.  The gen ed aspects are harder to quantify, but 12 faculty*4 sections/faculty*20 students/section is a max of only 960 students served per semester.  A 4/4 means people aren't doing a lot of research and one would expect majors to be taking more than one history course per term.

The mechanical and aerospace engineering department claims 750 undergrads with 20 faculty members if you count everyone.  That's a 38:1 student:faculty ratio.  The bragging on the page is 'small-school education with extensive research' .

[Aster]

You go to NMSU to avail yourselves to a world-class academic enrichment experience at cheap public university prices.

No...just no.

You go to NMSU because it's close.

You go to NMSU because it's cheap.

You go to NMSU because you don't know what a real university education looks like and it's good enough for government work.

You go to NMSU because it's a good enough degree for the fields where credentials are a thing.

If you really, really want a world-class university education, NMSU does not rank on the list and, for many fields, even UNM as the flagship isn't on the list.

I doubt that a faculty union is really what NMSU needs, especially if it's the humanities folks who are most worried about their jobs.

Las Cruces is not a small town.  It's the second largest city in New Mexico and, at 100k, it's just outside the top 300 most populated cities in the US, just like South Bend, Indiana.

OMG. I'd recommend reading posts more carefully before dashing off hasty bullet points that dig a new rabbit hole.

I never wrote that Las Cruces is a small town. I wrote that it is a "small city". Which it very much is, barely cracking 100,000 residents.  Las Cruces is very compact, very cutesy, and very photogenic. It has most of the services and amenities found in a city and regional hub, but also a low enough population to not overload or create queues for those amenities and services.

I also never wrote that NMSU provides a world class educational experience. I wrote that NMSU provides a "world class academic enrichment experience". Enrichment experience. Big difference. That would be the *other* major component of the traditional university mission besides the formal educational one.  Enrichment is huge.  Enrichment is front and center of nearly every 4-year university's recruiting and advertising plan. Coffee shops. Parks. Parks for Dogs. Museums. Concert Halls. Theater. Bar Strips. Craft Breweries. Community Gardens. Farmers Markets. IntraMurals. Football. Quidditch. Clubs. Student Government. New dormitories.  Study Abroad. Field Trips. Rec Centers. Climbing walls. Lazy rivers. Actual rivers. Massage clinics. I'll just stop there. I realize that many professors (particularly in STEM) are known raise their noses in effete disdain of these things, and they are free to have those opinions. They just won't be the ones asked to give campus tours.

NMSU's enrichment experience is unusually good compared to most other U.S. R2's (and many R1's). That enrichment makes NMSU unusually popular with its undergraduate body. Amenities and offerings that you normally only get at posh SLAC's or R1's are available at NMSU at much lower tuition pricing. It's also a lot less of a hassle to get into an R2 like NMSU. Only community colleges and for-profit diploma mills are simpler to enroll into.

And referring to NMSU (or any other R2) with statements like  "You go to NMSU because you don't know what a real university education looks like" is both elitish and insulting to the Academy. I am surprised to see a statement like this written on this forum. Much (if not most) of U.S. bachelor's degrees come from universities like NMSU. Regional comprehensive universities most certainly provide a "real university education" and (at the undergraduate level) often will even do it better than the R1's. Regional comprehensives are perfectly fine, their faculty are perfectly fine, and their undergraduate alumni are perfectly fine. Now if one is pursuing advanced graduate-level coursework and degrees, R2's may not be the best fit. But I don't think that anyone's really parsing that particular item.

[spork]

Courtesy of Anselm:

https://www.newsweek.com/michigan-college-requires-students-stay-within-5-miles-campus-face-suspension-tracks-them-app-1525895

Well, at least it will be an interesting case study when this is all over.

Albion has had annual deficits of between $5 million and $9 million every year from FY 2013 through FY 2018 (most recent year available), on total operating expenses that skyrocketed from $76 million to $110 million during the same period. 

[polly_mer]

Ah, Aster.  That's a spirited defense that pretty much ignores that while R2s award many college degrees, the education that lets people go on to success is generally the specialized education like nursing, engineering, and k-12 teaching certificates, not the educational enrichment aspects.

All the cultural stuff is part of being in a place more populous than two stop lights and a grocery store.  That's not special to NMSU; that's being a population center big enough to support multiple coffee shops.  It's unclear to me how getting used to those amenities is really a benefit to the 50% of students who leave NMSU without a degree to go back to the small places without those things, but with student debt.

I am an alumna of New Mexico Tech straight from rural Wisconsin in a town too small for two stoplights with zero coffee shops, so the elitist accusation just makes me laugh.  The problem isn't that NMSU is a non-elite institution.  The problem is NMSU is uneven on what it is promising to new students compared to what it can deliver.

[Wahoo Redux]

Platteville has a Mayberry feel to it.  Dubuque has a vista that belies to mediocrity but claims the old Al Capone hotel downtown.  The river is beautiful in La Crosse and Northern cheeseland looks like Middle Earth. 

You have a specific idea of "success."

[polly_mer]

UW Madison is worried: https://www.chicagotribune.com/midwest/ct-uw-madison-financial-crisis-20200812-ntsvfnqtt5dh5glfze3lb6vbx4-story.html

You have a specific idea of "success."

Yes, and many of the people on these fora fail to meet it, unlike my hometown folks who made good choices instead of believing the hype of college educations that don't deliver.

I laugh pretty hard every time I see people with undesirable life outcomes keep insisting that more people should pay good money to be on that same path.  The reset of educational institutions as the pandemic continues will fix many systemic problems.