Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[spork]

Adrian had positive net revenue through FY 2018, but its undergraduate FTE declined by ~ 20% from FY 2007 to FY 2018. My guess is that enrollment continued to drop and someone realized that the college had far too many faculty given the number of students.

[Golazo]

Now apparently the cuts at Adrian are being rescinded: https://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/2020/09/passionate-feedback-prompts-adrian-college-president-to-reverse-cuts-to-humanities-departments.html

Eliminating departments is never great but now it sounds like things will be completely poisoned.

[Parasaurolophus]

It's just... you'd think some minimal planning and consultation would take place before a decision like that gets made, so that you wouldn't have to reverse course once you realize that you can't call yourself a liberal arts university without any liberal arts subjects.

[spork]

It's just... you'd think some minimal planning and consultation would take place before a decision like that gets made, so that you wouldn't have to reverse course once you realize that you can't call yourself a liberal arts university without any liberal arts subjects.

Not directed at you -- I wish people, especially an institution's own faculty and administrators, would stop using this terminology because it isn't supported by evidence. According to IPEDS, Adrian awarded 319 bachelor's degrees in FY 2019. Of these, the top majors:

• Business: 76
• Recreation and fitness studies: 56
• Education: 21
• Social services: 21
• Criminal justice: 17
• Communications: 14
• Health professions: 13

That's 218 graduates or 68% from just seven occupational training programs (there are others I didn't include). In comparison:

• Math: 4
• Philosophy and religion: 0
• English: 4
• Foreign languages: 1
• History: 2

Adrian is yet another one of those low-enrollment schools that was founded as a church-affiliated institution for theological training that now relies on, I assume, attracting mediocre students to a mediocre business program. It probably hasn't been a "liberal arts college" for the last 75 years.

[polly_mer]

Adrian is yet another one of those low-enrollment schools that was founded as a church-affiliated institution for theological training that now relies on, I assume, attracting mediocre students to a mediocre business program. It probably hasn't been a "liberal arts college" for the last 75 years.

Many of these colleges were never LACs.  Somehow, 'LAC' == 'good' got into the PR rotation, so that's the trite phrase bandied about while completely ignoring the reality or the new missions that might have saved these institutions had they pivoted five years ago.

[Parasaurolophus]

Not directed at you -- I wish people, especially an institution's own faculty and administrators, would stop using this terminology because it isn't supported by evidence.

FWIW, I agree: an institution's branding should reflect its reality or its aspirations.

I don't think numbers of majors is necessarily a good metric (but, hey, you need something), especially when we're comparing applied subjects with clearly-defined career paths to discovery majors. So, I'd be perfectly fine with an institution calling itself a LAC but haviing few majors in the liberal arts, so long as a significant chunk of the students there actually obtain a liberal arts education (through distribution requirements, minors, etc.). But to do that you have to buy into your own branding and invest in developing the liberal arts.

(And I have no doubt that Adrian's not doing any of that! It looks like a textbook case of trying to have it both ways and ending up with nothing much.)

[spork]

Not directed at you -- I wish people, especially an institution's own faculty and administrators, would stop using this terminology because it isn't supported by evidence.

FWIW, I agree: an institution's branding should reflect its reality or its aspirations.

I don't think numbers of majors is necessarily a good metric (but, hey, you need something), especially when we're comparing applied subjects with clearly-defined career paths to discovery majors. So, I'd be perfectly fine with an instition calling itself a LAC but haviing few majors in the liberal arts, so long as a significant chunk of the students there actually obtain a liberal arts education (through distribution requirements, minors, etc.). But to do that you have to buy into your own branding and invest in developing the liberal arts.

(And I have no doubt that Adrian's not doing any of that! It looks like a textbook case of trying to have it both ways and ending up with nothing much.)

In all my years of teaching university students, I've never had any of them say they chose to enroll because of the liberal arts gen ed requirements. I'm guessing it's the same at Adrian College.

[polly_mer]

In all my years of teaching university students, I've never had any of them say they chose to enroll because of the liberal arts gen ed requirements. I'm guessing it's the same at Adrian College.

I was present in a program review meeting where a humanities professor point blank asked the recent alum on the committee about why the alum had chosen Super Dinky and the response was 'the mandatory liberal arts gen ed sequence'.

That particular sequence was on the chopping block because so many good students left to complete their major somewhere with a more flexible general education program.

We had many students reject their admissions offer when they looked at the suggested 4-year plan and realized that, by design, they would still be taking gen eds their senior year, unlike the same major at comparable regional institutions. 

Yes, some people want a liberal arts education.  Some people, though, want a college education in a broad field that actually prepares them for a career instead of still needing more education after college.  A non-negligible fraction of associate degrees and one-year CC certificates go to people who already have a bachelor's degree and found that insufficient.

[Ruralguy]

You know, I definitely chose my undergrad education because of its core curriculum. So did many of that college's alums.

But does that translate into anything relevant for grads of my current much less competitive SLAC?  Eh, a little. Is not like zero recent grads said something like this. The problem is that many more say the diametric opposite.

Though it pains me personally to reduce our core by more than a course or two, if we had to cut more to allow for a more modern curriculum with bigger majors that train more for specific types of jobs, I'd be for it.

[polly_mer]

I think part of the problem for many non-selective institutions is they are advertising a liberal arts education, but aren't delivering a liberal arts education.

I spent a lot of quality time reviewing Super Dinky's competitors. The differences between Super Dinky's required core gen ed courses and the competitor's liberal arts offerings were so stark.  Why would anyone who wanted a liberal arts education pick Super Dinky when other places had so many more fabulous offerings and the learning community atmosphere to take full advantage?

Super Dinky had three English professors who offered one elective each per year.  There was also one elective by the philosophy professor, one elective by the religion professor, and two electives by the history professor.  Why so few electives?  The full-time humanities professors each took one course in the mandatory gen eds and offered enough sections so each student had a seat.

At one point in the long ago, Super Dinky had a very interesting gen ed program in which all the faculty taught, regardless of official expertise, and the entire campus had lengthy discussions at 11AM followed by continued discussions at lunch in the dining hall.  It was a liberal arts education and really appealing to the students who want the free-wheeling, big ideas discussions based on the whole of Western civilization.

When Super Dinky announced the final nail in the specific required humanities sequence, the alumni from the Core Ed Era came out of the woodwork to defend their experiences.  However, that was 30+ years ago and the curriculum had been watered down to unrecognizable as Super Dinky built major programs where faculty would not teach humanities courses (e.g., nursing, business, criminal justice), students became commuters instead of residential, and the fabulous faculty who cared a lot about teaching left for more money, leaving only the faculty who couldn't get other jobs.

[apl68]

Not directed at you -- I wish people, especially an institution's own faculty and administrators, would stop using this terminology because it isn't supported by evidence.

FWIW, I agree: an institution's branding should reflect its reality or its aspirations.

I don't think numbers of majors is necessarily a good metric (but, hey, you need something), especially when we're comparing applied subjects with clearly-defined career paths to discovery majors. So, I'd be perfectly fine with an instition calling itself a LAC but haviing few majors in the liberal arts, so long as a significant chunk of the students there actually obtain a liberal arts education (through distribution requirements, minors, etc.). But to do that you have to buy into your own branding and invest in developing the liberal arts.

That seems fair to me as well.  Saying that an institution is a fake LAC because most of its majors are lowly education and business and nursing majors seems dismissive, and kind of elitist.  I get that a lot of SLACs are now in the process of losing any right to be considered an LAC, but that doesn't mean that all of them never were in the first place. 

Looking at IPEDS, I see that in the neighborhood of a third of majors at my alma mater--one of those small religiously-affiliated schools that polly and spork seem to hold in such contempt--are still in one or another field of the humanities.  Does that mean it's not a real LAC?

[mythbuster]

What would be a positive label for these schools that are not Liberal Arts institutions?

I think part of the problem is that everyone claims to be a LAC at some level.

I work at a compass point comprehensive, with LOTS of business, nursing, engineering, education etc majors and even we  claim to have a core curriculum in the liberal arts.

I don't think there is a non-derogatory term for any other approach in the US. So what should we call these other schools, and how do we differentiate them from just a school with some Gen Ed requirements?

[polly_mer]

That seems fair to me as well.  Saying that an institution is a fake LAC because most of its majors are lowly education and business and nursing majors seems dismissive, and kind of elitist.  I get that a lot of SLACs are now in the process of losing any right to be considered an LAC, but that doesn't mean that all of them never were in the first place. 

Looking at IPEDS, I see that in the neighborhood of a third of majors at my alma mater--one of those small religiously-affiliated schools that polly and spork seem to hold in such contempt--are still in one or another field of the humanities.  Does that mean it's not a real LAC?

You're reading me wrong.  I approve of moving to serve the local needs by having large numbers of nurses, business folks, criminal justice folks, and teachers.

In the even longer ago, Super Dinky saved themselves by admitting men and starting engineering programs to attract the men. However, those programs became more and more expensive to run and engineering in particular is very hard to run in tiny places so those programs were killed decades ago.

The problem isn't being small or religiously-affiliated or even liberal-arts-focused.  The problem is not delivering as advertised.

A liberal arts education is traditionally 1/3 major, 1/3 gen ed, and 1/3 electives.  Nursing, K-12 education, social work, engineering, and other disciplines are not a liberal arts education any way you slice it, based on the typical licensure requirements.

However, business often does have room for a good many electives as do other popular enough fields like psychology.  I can believe someone majoring in business or psychology at some institutions is getting a liberal arts education.

However, even the handful of humanities graduates at Super Dinky were not getting a liberal arts education worth having due to lack of options and lack of a community of peers.  The nurses, social workers, and k-12 teachers were getting a good college education.  The humanities majors were being ripped off and anyone who had intended to be a humanities major didn't enroll for good reasons.

Cutting those majors was the right thing to do, regardless of the value of the subjects themselves.  Many colleges are not doing them well and that's a disservice to everyonee except the people drawing a paycheck for ripping off the students.

[spork]

Not directed at you -- I wish people, especially an institution's own faculty and administrators, would stop using this terminology because it isn't supported by evidence.

FWIW, I agree: an institution's branding should reflect its reality or its aspirations.

I don't think numbers of majors is necessarily a good metric (but, hey, you need something), especially when we're comparing applied subjects with clearly-defined career paths to discovery majors. So, I'd be perfectly fine with an instition calling itself a LAC but haviing few majors in the liberal arts, so long as a significant chunk of the students there actually obtain a liberal arts education (through distribution requirements, minors, etc.). But to do that you have to buy into your own branding and invest in developing the liberal arts.

That seems fair to me as well.  Saying that an institution is a fake LAC because most of its majors are lowly education and business and nursing majors seems dismissive, and kind of elitist.  I get that a lot of SLACs are now in the process of losing any right to be considered an LAC, but that doesn't mean that all of them never were in the first place. 

Looking at IPEDS, I see that in the neighborhood of a third of majors at my alma mater--one of those small religiously-affiliated schools that polly and spork seem to hold in such contempt--are still in one or another field of the humanities.  Does that mean it's not a real LAC?

If I'm reading this correctly, you've misunderstood me. Adrian College's IPEDS data and tax filings indicate that 1) the overwhelming majority of students major in occupational training programs, 2) the liberal arts portions of the curriculum are probably almost entirely composed of a limited menu of courses that fulfill gen ed options (there does appear to be some type of arts program that has a healthy number of majors).

Of the places where I have been a full-time professor:

• church-affiliated high school that eventually became a church-affiliated university with 3,000 students; a few of its liberal arts programs are ok but none are great.
• church-affiliated college that is now a non-denominational university with 5,000 students; a few ok liberal arts programs.
• church-affiliated university with 2,000 students that originally only admitted women to train them for the service occupations open to them at the time (teacher, nurse); liberal arts programs range from mediocre to "you're really wasting a lot of money."
• non-denominational normal school that became a regional state university with 15,000 students, which means enough scale to offer some reasonably high-quality liberal arts programs.

For all of the above, most of the students who major in liberal arts fields (broadly defined) do so because they think it is the path toward graduate study necessary to obtain professional licensure, e.g., JD, MD, master's in therapy/counseling. And at all of these places, the only exposure to liberal arts that most students get comes from a hodgepodge of one-off gen ed requirements that students regard as meaningless.

None of the above institutions are the equivalent of a Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Williams, or Bates, places with students who are likely to do well post-college regardless of their choice of major.

When enrollment at a tuition-dependent institution declines to a certain level, it becomes even less viable to try to be all things to all people. The "liberal arts college" hype isn't in the financial interest of the college or of the students who attend.

[Hibush]

What would be a positive label for these schools that are not Liberal Arts institutions?

I think part of the problem is that everyone claims to be a LAC at some level.

I work at a compass point comprehensive, with LOTS of business, nursing, engineering, education etc majors and even we  claim to have a core curriculum in the liberal arts.

I don't think there is a non-derogatory term for any other approach in the US. So what should we call these other schools, and how do we differentiate them from just a school with some Gen Ed requirements?

To the first question, I'd suggest "college."  Don't attach a conditional adjective that doesn't apply.

A lot of the discussion here makes the point that the "liberal arts" is not what most students are looking for. Using that term as a descriptor in marketing might reduce the attractiveness to those students, and possibly to parents who are paying a lot of money in the hope of having financially independent children.

Do compass-point comprehensives, and other non-LACs, retain the term because the faculty want to suspend disbelief and think of themselves that way? Does it make the trustees feel like they are responsible for a fancier school? Who is the constituent group pushing for that descriptor?