Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[Hegemony]

I think everyone here would be interested in listening in on the "Grown & Flown" page on Facebook, which has 30,000+ parents of high school and college-age kids. The consensus on there is that the "full college experience" is absolutely essential and that not to have it makes a degree hardly worth getting. The full college experience involves living on campus, having a full social life (often involving fraternities/sororities), participating in sports and rooting for the college team, tailgating, and living an uproarious college-age lifestyle. With that not available, a lot of parents are withdrawing their kids for the duration. It's a fascinating look at a viewpoint not often see on the Fora. The only point at which they seem in agreement is that the humanities are useless because humanities majors allegedly don't lead to jobs. And one's reward for leading the college lifestyle should be a high-paying job.

[apl68]

I think everyone here would be interested in listening in on the "Grown & Flown" page on Facebook, which has 30,000+ parents of high school and college-age kids. The consensus on there is that the "full college experience" is absolutely essential and that not to have it makes a degree hardly worth getting. The full college experience involves living on campus, having a full social life (often involving fraternities/sororities), participating in sports and rooting for the college team, tailgating, and living an uproarious college-age lifestyle. With that not available, a lot of parents are withdrawing their kids for the duration. It's a fascinating look at a viewpoint not often see on the Fora. The only point at which they seem in agreement is that the humanities are useless because humanities majors allegedly don't lead to jobs. And one's reward for leading the college lifestyle should be a high-paying job.

I suspect there's also a pronounced consensus there that online education is something to be avoided if at all possible.  Never mind sputtering about how wonderful online education is if only it can be done right.  There are still people who say that the Soviet Union would have worked if only it had been done right.

It's probably going to take online education a long time to recover from the black eye that this year's improvised online education efforts have given it.

Sad to hear that parents seem to be under the impression that the "college lifestyle," rather than the actual nose-to-the-grindstone education, is what leads to good job opportunities.  That would explain a lot about student attitudes.

[Hibush]

Speaking of the smaller branch campuses, Indiana University of Pennsylvania is in the NYT today for their mission of educating the poor and yet having had a bad financial decade even before Covid hit including a 30% decline in enrollment: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/us/college-coronavirus-tuition.html

A pretty fair-minded article, except for the shot about the Steinways. That was actually a necessary (and actually quite well-managed) expense for the Music Department.

IUP seems to have a clear mission and a plan to deliver on it, but does not have the revenue stream to support it. Any place that purports to have a mission to educate people from lower-income families cannot expect to have tuition play a big role in the budget. Replacing that source is only possible with a huge difference in structure. (Berea comes to mind as the sole private example.)

The cost per student is going to be high because it does require smaller classes, more counseling, more social services. Those things cost a lot more than climbing walls.

The pianos represent a large implied annual expense. How many teachers does it take to keep 90 pianos busy? How many HVAC techs to keep the rehearsal spaces at the right specifications. How do you build the curriculum so that the music majors have the business knowledge to make a career of music? The career aspirations may be as modes as a small-town music teacher, but success in that career takes a lot more kinds of expertise that musicianship. That program seems as reasonable for the institution as any many more common ones, and should be budgeted and supported realistically.

If the legislature covered the actual cost of delivering on the mission (>$30,000 per student per year), and that education were available to central Pennsylvania students at near-zero tuition, I bet there would be no enrollment drop at all.

Without that funding, it makes no sense to pretend that the budget model makes sense and just needs a closer eye on some expenses. 

[marshwiggle]

I suspect there's also a pronounced consensus there that online education is something to be avoided if at all possible.  Never mind sputtering about how wonderful online education is if only it can be done right.  There are still people who say that the Soviet Union would have worked if only it had been done right.

It's probably going to take online education a long time to recover from the black eye that this year's improvised online education efforts have given it.

I'm guessing there will at least be a minority for whom this was a good experience. For students who like working alone, and don't like coming to class and engaging in discussions, etc. this will probably be pretty appealing, especially when everything is done asynchronously. Similarly, for profs whose main task in lectures is presenting information, so that they don't rely on a lot of discussion, then again it will probably work well, especially when it can be asynchronous.

My bet would be that for something like 10% of students and *profs, this will have been worthwhile. Online is not going to replace in-person by any means, but for those that benefitted it opens to doors to further exploration.

*For profs, it might be more like 20% or more will have found this to work well for at least one specific course. I predict many profs who never tried to create online courses before will start to convert whatever course(s) worked well this way to regularly being online.

[Puget]

I think everyone here would be interested in listening in on the "Grown & Flown" page on Facebook, which has 30,000+ parents of high school and college-age kids. The consensus on there is that the "full college experience" is absolutely essential and that not to have it makes a degree hardly worth getting. The full college experience involves living on campus, having a full social life (often involving fraternities/sororities), participating in sports and rooting for the college team, tailgating, and living an uproarious college-age lifestyle. With that not available, a lot of parents are withdrawing their kids for the duration. It's a fascinating look at a viewpoint not often see on the Fora. The only point at which they seem in agreement is that the humanities are useless because humanities majors allegedly don't lead to jobs. And one's reward for leading the college lifestyle should be a high-paying job.

It's easy to make fun of that, and certainly parts of a "college lifestyle" may not be healthy, but social interaction is immensely important to their development as they transition to adulthood. It's not frivolous-- humans learn best through interactions with other humans, and what they are learning goes well beyond the classroom to clubs, activities, late night conversations, etc. Even very good online classes are a poor substitute, just like zoom holidays are a poor substitute for actually traveling to see your family. Even the students attending in person are having a very impoverished experience compared to normal times (few in person activities, eating alone in their rooms, etc.). We're doing the best we can under the circumstances, but let's not pretend it's somehow just as good.

[dr_codex]

I think everyone here would be interested in listening in on the "Grown & Flown" page on Facebook, which has 30,000+ parents of high school and college-age kids. The consensus on there is that the "full college experience" is absolutely essential and that not to have it makes a degree hardly worth getting. The full college experience involves living on campus, having a full social life (often involving fraternities/sororities), participating in sports and rooting for the college team, tailgating, and living an uproarious college-age lifestyle. With that not available, a lot of parents are withdrawing their kids for the duration. It's a fascinating look at a viewpoint not often see on the Fora. The only point at which they seem in agreement is that the humanities are useless because humanities majors allegedly don't lead to jobs. And one's reward for leading the college lifestyle should be a high-paying job.

Going off to look.

Any group with tens of thousands of members should be on our radar.

[kaysixteen]

Random thoughts:

1.  First generation students will always, or at least almost always, be in different circumstances than students from  college educated parents.  Your ability to offer these things to your kids, things your parents could not have given you,  is much more likely with that college degree.   But my point is not that any given boomer parents have or have not paid more for their kids than their own parents may have, but rather that, taken as a whole, the college aged boomers themselves entered their college years in an environment where society as a whole had vastly more substantially invested in those kids' education and employment opportunities than today's college age kids are faced with.  This is unambiguously true (though perhaps  less so in Canada?), and it is true largely because the boomers,  who have dominated politics for the last 30 to 40 years, have made it so, mobilizing wealth and opportunities for themselves at the increasing expense of subsequent generations.

2.  I get your point wrt wealthy parents and their kids being willing to spend high for college 'experience ' that bears little resemblance to real education quality,  but let's not throw the baby put with the bathwater  ... for most subjects,  online ed just ain't as good as ftf, esp in slac-style environments.   Really, it ain't.

[marshwiggle]

Even very good online classes are a poor substitute, just like zoom holidays are a poor substitute for actually traveling to see your family.

But being able to "attend" a celebration, funeral, etc. with people who are too far away to be able to do it in person is an improvement over having no option at all.

Even the students attending in person are having a very impoverished experience compared to normal times (few in person activities, eating alone in their rooms, etc.). We're doing the best we can under the circumstances, but let's not pretend it's somehow just as good.

Having to treat the experience as monolithic misses the point. It is already the case that many students have taken courses online when they are not physically at school, (such as during the summer), and have found it a useful option. Having more choices like that will be a good thing. (For example, some students have to miss a term due to illness, or family responsibilities preventing them from being in person. Being able to do even some of their coursework remotely would allow them to keep moving forward.)

[L]et's not throw the baby put with the bathwater  ... for most subjects,  online ed just ain't as good as ftf, esp in slac-style environments.   Really, it ain't.

The question isn't what kind of instruction is "best" in any absolute sense; what matters is what is a reasonably effective option for a given student at a given time. (And let's be honest. There are lots of mediocre and worse instructors who don't give a particularly great experience ever. A good online course would be a vast improvement in cases like that for many students.)

[apl68]

I think everyone here would be interested in listening in on the "Grown & Flown" page on Facebook, which has 30,000+ parents of high school and college-age kids. The consensus on there is that the "full college experience" is absolutely essential and that not to have it makes a degree hardly worth getting. The full college experience involves living on campus, having a full social life (often involving fraternities/sororities), participating in sports and rooting for the college team, tailgating, and living an uproarious college-age lifestyle. With that not available, a lot of parents are withdrawing their kids for the duration. It's a fascinating look at a viewpoint not often see on the Fora. The only point at which they seem in agreement is that the humanities are useless because humanities majors allegedly don't lead to jobs. And one's reward for leading the college lifestyle should be a high-paying job.

It's easy to make fun of that, and certainly parts of a "college lifestyle" may not be healthy, but social interaction is immensely important to their development as they transition to adulthood. It's not frivolous-- humans learn best through interactions with other humans, and what they are learning goes well beyond the classroom to clubs, activities, late night conversations, etc. Even very good online classes are a poor substitute, just like zoom holidays are a poor substitute for actually traveling to see your family. Even the students attending in person are having a very impoverished experience compared to normal times (few in person activities, eating alone in their rooms, etc.). We're doing the best we can under the circumstances, but let's not pretend it's somehow just as good.

That's a good point.  As badly as it is so often abused, giving traditional-age college students a chance to practice building a society among themselves can be a valuable experience.  My parents actually gently pushed me to become MORE involved in the non-academic side of things, because they knew that my extreme introversion could be harmful in the long run.  I was able to do so in a campus environment where the school's administration worked to hold the abuses of the Greek system and such firmly in check. 

And though I'm grateful for having been able to take advantage of an online-only option to earn my professional library degree, I just don't see online-only being an adequate substitute for most traditional-age students.  They need face-to-face.  I'm hoping that the widespread sub-par online experiences of this year's students will help to squelch the pernicious notion we've been hearing that online education will somehow enable us to educate our nation's youth in a cheaper and more efficient fashion.  Good online education--the kind that if anything costs MORE time and resources than much face-to-face instruction--has its place, but so much of the push to online has really been a push for fobbing off the poorer members of society with an inferior substitute education.

[apl68]

Random thoughts:

1.  First generation students will always, or at least almost always, be in different circumstances than students from  college educated parents.  Your ability to offer these things to your kids, things your parents could not have given you,  is much more likely with that college degree.   But my point is not that any given boomer parents have or have not paid more for their kids than their own parents may have, but rather that, taken as a whole, the college aged boomers themselves entered their college years in an environment where society as a whole had vastly more substantially invested in those kids' education and employment opportunities than today's college age kids are faced with.  This is unambiguously true (though perhaps  less so in Canada?), and it is true largely because the boomers,  who have dominated politics for the last 30 to 40 years, have made it so, mobilizing wealth and opportunities for themselves at the increasing expense of subsequent generations.

I think I understand what you're trying to say here.  And I think you're substantially right.

[marshwiggle]

Random thoughts:

1.  First generation students will always, or at least almost always, be in different circumstances than students from  college educated parents.  Your ability to offer these things to your kids, things your parents could not have given you,  is much more likely with that college degree.   But my point is not that any given boomer parents have or have not paid more for their kids than their own parents may have, but rather that, taken as a whole, the college aged boomers themselves entered their college years in an environment where society as a whole had vastly more substantially invested in those kids' education and employment opportunities than today's college age kids are faced with.  This is unambiguously true (though perhaps  less so in Canada?), and it is true largely because the boomers,  who have dominated politics for the last 30 to 40 years, have made it so, mobilizing wealth and opportunities for themselves at the increasing expense of subsequent generations.

I think I understand what you're trying to say here.  And I think you're substantially right.

Here's some perspective:

The overall college enrollment rate for 18- to 24-year-olds increased from 35 percent in 2000 to 41 percent in 2018. In this indicator, college enrollment rate is defined as the percentage of 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled as undergraduate or graduate students in 2- or 4-year institutions.

And more:

College enrollment rates have increased 195% since 1970, when 3.5% of the U.S. population were college students.

So even without climbing walls and all of the fluff, the proportion of the population going to post-secondary education has increased drastically, with the associated drastic increase in costs. Furthermore, as the proportion of the population has gone up, it includes a much higher percentage of weaker students than would have been considered decades ago.

The bottom line is that the expectations have risen much faster than inflation, so even using a constant portion of government revenue would have resulted in funding falling increasingly far below those expectations.

[spork]

I think everyone here would be interested in listening in on the "Grown & Flown" page on Facebook, which has 30,000+ parents of high school and college-age kids. The consensus on there is that the "full college experience" is absolutely essential and that not to have it makes a degree hardly worth getting. The full college experience involves living on campus, having a full social life (often involving fraternities/sororities), participating in sports and rooting for the college team, tailgating, and living an uproarious college-age lifestyle. With that not available, a lot of parents are withdrawing their kids for the duration. It's a fascinating look at a viewpoint not often see on the Fora. The only point at which they seem in agreement is that the humanities are useless because humanities majors allegedly don't lead to jobs. And one's reward for leading the college lifestyle should be a high-paying job.

Sounds like a chapter in Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class. Or the results of a market research study on white suburbanites who voted for Trump in 2016.

[polly_mer]

Pacific Lutheran University has declared financial exigency: https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article247922835.html

This is after already cutting faculty in 2016 with 31 faculty positions lost.  A minimum of 40 faculty positions are expected to be lost in this iteration.

[jimbogumbo]

Pacific Lutheran University has declared financial exigency: https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article247922835.html

This is after already cutting faculty in 2016 with 31 faculty positions lost.  A minimum of 40 faculty positions are expected to be lost in this iteration.

I am confident the major and minor in Criminal Justice they started this year will bail them out.

Sure.

[Puget]

Pacific Lutheran University has declared financial exigency: https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article247922835.html

This is after already cutting faculty in 2016 with 31 faculty positions lost.  A minimum of 40 faculty positions are expected to be lost in this iteration.

PLU is a venerable institution as old as the state itself, but this isn't particularly surprising--at the time it was founded the region was  heavily settled by Scandinavian immigrants, so there was a market for a Lutheran college. Washington is now one of the least religious states, so that isn't much of a draw anymore. They don't have name brand recognition or prestige that would draw out of state students, and it isn't clear why in state students would prefer it to the much lower tuition and greater resources at UW, which is just up the road and also has a branch campus in Tacoma. Basically same story as a lot of religiously affiliated colleges without anything in particular that makes them stand out.