Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[apl68]

Being a librarian at this point without fabulous quantitative reasoning skills and a big dollop of tech savvy is a non-starter anywhere I've been interacting with librarians for the past 20 years.

Part of the reason why libraries insist on years of experience as well as a degree as qualification for professional-level positions is the need to have experience using IT in a library setting.

[marshwiggle]

The humanities faculty at most institutions are fighting the wrong fight entirely and will lose in most of the foreseeable scenarios because a liberal arts education is not the end all, be all of tertiary education.

Most of the world does not require general education distribution requirements at the tertiary level.  Elementary and secondary education is where citizens learn enough literature, history, basic philosophy, basic math, and basic science to get by.  Tertiary education is about specializing in one field to become proficient.  Oxford undergrad degrees can be three years because they don't have the extra year of general education.  Anyone want to assert that an Oxford degree is not really a university education? 

I have a question. Is the US emphasis on "liberal arts" and "general education" mainly a consequence of having such a huge number of tiny institutions, where specialization would require any specific place to offer only a handful of majors? It seems to me that in most countries the average (and certainly median) institution size would be much bigger, so that there is the scale to offer several majors at the size that is needed to be financially viable.


If that's the case, then the tail is wagging the dog. "How do we keep small places in business?" "Make everyone take as many of the same courses as possible."

[Ruralguy]

I think it almost certainly started off as a cultural difference. Many of these small schools are quite old, and many of the rest take after them. So, I think they harken to a day when "gentlemen" were expected to know certain things before going often into society, and then eventually "young ladies" were included, either at first with women's colleges, but then much later, as some of those schools became co-educational. I think that sort of thinking set a broad gen-ed curriculum, though most of those have evolved as the population changed. With time, especially second half of 20th century and later, it became cultural to get (almost) everyone into college, either one of these small ones, or a state school, or much later, the for-profit stuff. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Its helped many get into college who likely would have been closed out 50-100 years earlier. But for a long time, I think especially for traditional aged students, there was a lot of meandering and just leaving with a piece of paper. Some didn't even have majors until the 60's. 

Anyway, I think later, eventually, business models started to creep in. Perhaps that lead to doubling down on gen ed, but at least at my small school, even though we have a fairly big core, over half the students are majoring in one field. To borrow from that field, I think the rest of the majors follow a "Pareto power-law" in terms of number of students:  the next couple of majors down the list graduate maybe 10's instead of hundreds, then the next several, about 10, and the last several, just single digits, and then a couple of legacy fields have zero majors in some years.

Its my understanding that Europeans have been much less focused on getting everyone into a university setting, so by focusing on the motivated, I think programs are focused on what those individuals need to move forward. Some are close to being "pure" liberal arts fields, but I am sure many now are much more vocationally oriented.  I know that's an over-simplication because some countries outside of US have differing types of schools as well.

But I am sure under both a general American model and a more focused European one, folks can be slow to change and get focused on how to save their job and field. So I think that's the sort of thing that can lead to what you are speaking of, Marsh.

Anyway, obviously, I have been painting with broad stokes, but I don't think we just fell into this because tiny schools demanded gen ed because that's all they thought they could support. I wouldn't be surprised to see more of the ones that survive slash and burn their cores and focus on a handful of subjects for specialists, and everyone else can go somewhere else, because they weren't going to those small schools anyway (not anymore).

[Hibush]

Vermont is such a small state that running a college is a challenge. The state only has 600,000 people, so it is almost like a small city and its suburbs supporting a major college. For comparison, Myrtle Beach, SC and Fort Wayne, IN metro areas have similar populations.

Despite popular belief, UVM is a private, not public or "state" university. It has attracted heavily from outside of Vermont, and had been in recent years getting lots of applicants from around the country. They do get some state funding, but also probably affected the bottom line, but it is not in the same category as the Vermont state schools.

Partially correct. UVM is the public university in Vermont and the others are the public colleges. So they are not in the same category.

It is also true that the state provides a very small proportion of UVMs budget, which means it has to act a lot like a private university while still being beholden to the state legislature and the majority of trustees that are appointed by the state.

[jimbogumbo]

[/quote]

Partially correct. UVM is the public university in Vermont and the others are the public colleges. So they are not in the same category.

It is also true that the state provides a very small proportion of UVMs budget, which means it has to act a lot like a private university while still being beholden to the state legislature and the majority of trustees that are appointed by the state.
[/quote]

My impression is that there are very few (any?) states where this is NOT the case with the flagships.

[jimbogumbo]

For 2019 the revenue from state appropriations at UoVT was listed at 12%. About the same for Midwestern Big 10 institutions.

[selecter]

St. Rose has been in this space before. Not sure if this means things are getting better or worse:
https://www.strose.edu/2020/12/08/saint-rose-to-discontinue-academic-programs-as-part-of-proactive-plan-to-address-financial-challenges/

[spork]

St. Rose has been in this space before. Not sure if this means things are getting better or worse:
https://www.strose.edu/2020/12/08/saint-rose-to-discontinue-academic-programs-as-part-of-proactive-plan-to-address-financial-challenges/

That's more than one-fifth of its tenure-track positions eliminated.

[Hibush]

St. Rose has been in this space before. Not sure if this means things are getting better or worse:
https://www.strose.edu/2020/12/08/saint-rose-to-discontinue-academic-programs-as-part-of-proactive-plan-to-address-financial-challenges/

That's more than one-fifth of its tenure-track positions eliminated.

The list of closed programs starts, familiarly, with studio art and music perfomance. Those are expensive programs to run. But going further down the list you get some traditionally popular, employment-oriented and money-making majors like med tech, IT and business.

They must really be looking closely at which majors they can execute well on.

The new efforts are an eclectic mix: nursing, sales and cybersecurity. How many young people watch Glengarry Glen Ross, and think "I want to be that guy! I'm going to major in sales managment at St. Rose."?

[Ruralguy]

Though I love David Mamet, I don't think he's hot with the kiddos these days.

In any case, you'd be surprised at what local kids say about their life dreams. Some say exactly the sort of thing you just posted (minus the ancient movie/play reference).

[Hegemony]

"Western Oregon University is planning to eliminate a number of degree programs following years of declining enrollment, which has only been worsened by the coronavirus pandemic. Some in the campus community said the decision is happening under a rushed timeline, especially as the university's president is set to retire next year.

In a finalized plan, released last week by a task force that included WOU President Rex Fuller, the university said it will eliminate majors including anthropology, philosophy and geography, as well as its master's programs in information systems and in music. The plan said the cuts were necessary because of low or declining enrollment.

From 2011 to 2020, the regional university's enrollment has decreased by more than 25%, according to WOU.

Those program curtailments, as well as the additional elimination of some minors and certificate programs, will cut about 30 full-time faculty positions through both layoffs and expired contracts, according to WOU."

https://www.opb.org/article/2020/12/08/western-oregon-university-majors-programs-covid-19/

[polly_mer]

The new efforts are an eclectic mix: nursing, sales and cybersecurity. How many young people watch Glengarry Glen Ross, and think "I want to be that guy! I'm going to major in sales managment at St. Rose."?

You don't know the young people I know if you are asking that question as a sarcastic "people don't want to be that guy!". 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4PE2hSqVnk (Glengarry Glen Ross: bad language) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfIKzReNDF4 (Boiler Room: much bad language) has a big thumbs up among many of the aspiring business majors at many places I've been.  They want to be Ben Affleck's character in the five years after graduation. But, for some reason, those folks don't seem to make the connection that people who go to a Super Dinky don't become the 27-year-old millionaires who is smiling ear to ear regarding their liquidity.  They don't seem to realize that they would have to go to an elite institution, make the right connections, and be convincing to the recruiters that they are the people who won't burn out in the first six months, but will instead be working their 80 hours right up until they are fired for not making partner to make room for the next cohort. 

They could maybe become Alec Baldwin if they go to the bigger city and create a professional network that feeds them regular leads, but they don't understand that their best likely possibility are going to be Bob at the local Bob's Appliances or Crazy Eddie at the local Cars, Cars, Cars! making a good middle class income by shaking a lot of hands, sponsoring every softball/bowling/pick-up-league team, and advertising in every local outlet every week.

Likewise, aspiring students pick up that cybersecurity is how many people are making good money in a "new" field.  Those aspiring students also buy into the idea that a college degree in the field will get them that fancy job with the FBI, CIA, or a big corporation.  Those aspiring students don't know about the people who have been already programming and being system admins since they were in middle school who have those cybersecurity jobs and will be their direct competition.  Those aspiring students don't know about the university programs where the big players have partnered to offer co-ops, internships, and project classes so the new graduates already have a couple years of directly relevant experience and that those programs are older than the entering students in this "new" area.  Again, St. Rose may be trying hard, but they are very unlikely to be as good an option as a cybersecurity program that grew out of good other programs in technology/IT/CS and criminal justice.

[polly_mer]

The humanities faculty at most institutions are fighting the wrong fight entirely and will lose in most of the foreseeable scenarios because a liberal arts education is not the end all, be all of tertiary education.

Most of the world does not require general education distribution requirements at the tertiary level.  Elementary and secondary education is where citizens learn enough literature, history, basic philosophy, basic math, and basic science to get by.  Tertiary education is about specializing in one field to become proficient.  Oxford undergrad degrees can be three years because they don't have the extra year of general education.  Anyone want to assert that an Oxford degree is not really a university education? 

I have a question. Is the US emphasis on "liberal arts" and "general education" mainly a consequence of having such a huge number of tiny institutions, where specialization would require any specific place to offer only a handful of majors? It seems to me that in most countries the average (and certainly median) institution size would be much bigger, so that there is the scale to offer several majors at the size that is needed to be financially viable.

Like Ruralguy, I don't think the emphasis on the liberal arts is driven by the tiny institutions existing and I agree that having all those tiny institutions is a historical artifact.  Those tiny institutions aren't old by European standards (most date to the early-to-mid-19th century) and have changed missions repeatedly as times changed.  We have so many in part because we're so much larger (geographically) than Europe.  We also have so many because in the mid-19th century the goals for a "college education" were easier to meet once one had a few rooms and some books.  The current emphasis on the liberal arts is a jobs preservation mechanism by the humanities professors that started in the mid-twentieth century as the changes to the higher ed landscape were starting to affect their employment.

The tiny institutions arose because of perceived local needs and most were more like finishing schools or ministry preparation than what most people would think of a modern college.  The Morrill Acts in the mid-19th century started the land-grant universities (https://www.nap.edu/read/4980/chapter/2) that were meeting the needs of an agricultural-based population, which have evolved to be branch campuses of the state system.  I'm not sure if any of the flagship universities started as land-grant institutions, but anything that is still called State A&M started that way.  Along the way, those agricultural colleges changed mission as the US shifted away from being a majority farmers to being the current single digit percent of the population being farmers.

Normal schools also arose in the 19th century as the way to get professional elementary and secondary schoolteachers instead of just letting a good student from the next town over become the local schoolteacher when a new one was needed.  By the mid-twentieth century, most of those normal schools had evolved into being branch campuses of the state system as well.

During this same time, apprenticeships gradually decreased and then fell off abruptly as what jobs were available changed with modern technology and formal education became more available to "everyone".

Some of the emphasis on the liberal arts as being the primary purpose of a university education in the US came about in the mid-twentieth century as the consolidations completed, the apprenticeships dropped dramatically, and the rise of the junior college/community college/vo-tech institute started.  The argument made by humanities faculty was that tertiary education has never been "mere vocational training" (conveniently overlooking all the history in the US indicating that it used to be for ministry or demonstrating membership in the elite class, followed by a rise by A&M and normal schools) and therefore whatever they teach is clearly the most important consideration.  It was a jobs saving move in the mid-twentieth century that worked to postpone some transitions as the men using the GI Bill believed the hype.

As the world moved on (even Harvard eliminated the requirement to be proficient in Latin and Greek just to enroll) and technical human knowledge exploded, new majors were made to meet demand.  A broader section of the population went to college and many of those folks were not bookish in the traditional sense.  Instead, they were like the original attendees at the land-grant institutions and normal schools looking to learn something they couldn't get elsewhere and would be qualified for a different job than their family/community network could get them. 

As travel became easier and now the internet allows for nearly instantaneous communication, the need for all those far-flung institutions serving a decreasing population is greatly reduced.  The changes in technology as it affects modern business also means that the baseline cost of having a modern institution in compliance with all the rules, regulations, and expected norms has gone up significantly, even if the material being taught would be familiar to students in the 1950s classrooms.

The immediate reason why tiny places go under after circling the drain for decades is being unable to pay the bills due to lack of enrollment and high cost of just existing.  However, the push to double down on the liberal arts education as the valuable education is a combination of genuine feeling by the humanities faculty that what they know is hugely important for everyone, fear for personal faculty job loss because faculty members who could have gotten good other jobs and been happy in those jobs tend to not still be faculty, and a genuine acknowledgement that very targeted training like a cosmetology certificate is not useful for the next job while probably not getting a job in a small town that is already full up on cosmetologists.

Yes, engineering and nursing programs are hugely expensive to administer.  However, many students like psychology, business, and criminal justice just fine and those are much easier to find faculty willing to teach.  Students then may choose the convenience, larger selection of courses, and cheaper price of fully online through a state university over the very-expensive-for-what-you-get, in-person, tiny, local, private college.  After all, if the goal is education, not all the fabulous experiences on a residential campus, then the good online education at a quarter of the tuition and no additional living costs (often $10k for a dorm room and meal plan) wins.

[spork]

[. . . ]

Likewise, aspiring students pick up that cybersecurity is how many people are making good money in a "new" field.  Those aspiring students also buy into the idea that a college degree in the field will get them that fancy job with the FBI, CIA, or a big corporation.  Those aspiring students don't know about the people who have been already programming and being system admins since they were in middle school who have those cybersecurity jobs and will be their direct competition.  Those aspiring students don't know about the university programs where the big players have partnered to offer co-ops, internships, and project classes so the new graduates already have a couple years of directly relevant experience and that those programs are older than the entering students in this "new" area.  Again, St. Rose may be trying hard, but they are very unlikely to be as good an option as a cybersecurity program that grew out of good other programs in technology/IT/CS and criminal justice.

Used to be every fourth criminal justice major I ran into would say something like "I'm going to be a profiler who catches serial killers" because of the popularity of TV shows like X-Files and CSI. And I'd have to bite my lip to prevent myself from saying "No you're not. There is only one forensic psychologist on the state government's payroll and you definitely don't have the ability to get into, much less complete, a psychology PhD program. If you did, you wouldn't be enrolled here."

[apl68]

St. Rose has been in this space before. Not sure if this means things are getting better or worse:
https://www.strose.edu/2020/12/08/saint-rose-to-discontinue-academic-programs-as-part-of-proactive-plan-to-address-financial-challenges/

That's more than one-fifth of its tenure-track positions eliminated.

The list of closed programs starts, familiarly, with studio art and music perfomance. Those are expensive programs to run.

Evidently there has been a real crash in the number of students majoring in studio and performance arts.  Alma Mater has long had a strong music program.  That makes sense, as Alma Mater is a denominationally-affiliated school that supplies church music majors as well as ministers.  But even with that niche to fill, the number of musicians they're training has gone way down.