Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[polly_mer]

...You may not think any humanities fields are worthwhile, but these are as rigorous as any other humanities program, and more interdisciplinary to boot. I think maybe it's time for academics to stop dissing any field that's not their own: "Those people are politically correct lightweights and their field of study is cartoonish!" We've got enough anti-intellectualism in the culture at large without the call coming from inside the house.

The calls may be coming from inside the house, but it's not just STEM folks making them. I've all too often encountered attitudes from humanities folks along the lines that STEM involves no critical thinking - or even thinking at all, that it's merely number crunching, and that creativity, imagination, etc are only found in the humanities.

Try being an engineer or being in business.  We don't even count as being worthy to be considered part of academia.

I am always amused when people want to defend their parts of academia without a leg on which to stand.  For example, asserting that one lightweight area is just as rigorous as another lightweight area doesn't help the case.

I'm not against the humanities or intellectuals in general, but it gets old to have assertions of general value when the general examples don't support that case.  Watching some parts of the fora who can't/won't/don't do their jobs by their own stories and questions while asserting that they can't/won't/don't other types of jobs actively undermines any assertion that the humanities have more intrinsic value than other endeavors.  And that's before we get to the complexities of modern life that requires being proficient at technology and algorithmic thinking, even in the absence of formal equations.

I am frequently reminded of a student project presentation with a finding of student athletes were exaggerating their study hours to impress their coaches.  The student athletes reported studying ten hours per week.  When I ask if the class thought ten hours of study every week was a lot for a full-time student, the class replied yes.  I then explained that 15 credits should be more like 30 hours of study per week and watched the discussion among these seniors who asserted that no one studied that much, probably not even the nursing study cult.  I didn't have the heart to tell these social science majors that engineering students back in my day considered any week of under sixty hours to be a light week.

I continue to be amused about people trying to be impressive by exaggerating up to only a third of the necessary time and then wondering why their jobs after college required a lot of work for very little money.  If only they had worked harder in college and mastered the material in their majors to then be able to do harder work that paid better because so few people can do the hard part outside the classroom.

Many topics regarding humans are worth studying.  However, that means doing the hard work of studying instead of writing up wishful thinking as solutions to hard problems.  Math doesn't have to be involved, but ignoring all the science or even the good literature regarding how human tend to act in groups is not intellectually valuable, even if people woth the same titles are doing something valuable.

[Hegemony]

I am always amused when people want to defend their parts of academia without a leg on which to stand.  For example, asserting that one lightweight area is just as rigorous as another lightweight area doesn't help the case.

I'm not against the humanities or intellectuals in general, but it gets old to have assertions of general value when the general examples don't support that case.  Watching some parts of the fora who can't/won't/don't do their jobs by their own stories and questions while asserting that they can't/won't/don't other types of jobs actively undermines any assertion that the humanities have more intrinsic value than other endeavors.  And that's before we get to the complexities of modern life that requires being proficient at technology and algorithmic thinking, even in the absence of formal equations.

I am unclear on what this means, but I guess it's aimed at me, since I am in the humanities. So saying that the humanities are rigorous and/or worthwhile by saying that other humanities are rigorous and/or worthwhile is specious?  And I am unclear on how I am not doing my own job. Basically the whole argument is unclear to me. Maybe I've missed some basic assumptions propounded on some other thread. I'm still going to insist that the humanities are worthwhile. For those who would argue that they're worthless, I'd suggest that if you ever read fiction, watch films (fiction or documentaries), or TV, or listen to music, you're casting a vote in favor of the value of the humanities. "But I like the basic stuff, I just think people who study it are nonsensical," you may say. Of course everyone thinks they're right. I believe it's a social science, not a humanity, that studies the way that people who think they're right often aren't.

[marshwiggle]

I'm still going to insist that the humanities are worthwhile. For those who would argue that they're worthless, I'd suggest that if you ever read fiction, watch films (fiction or documentaries), or TV, or listen to music, you're casting a vote in favor of the value of the humanities. "But I like the basic stuff, I just think people who study it are nonsensical," you may say. Of course everyone thinks they're right. I believe it's a social science, not a humanity, that studies the way that people who think they're right often aren't.

I never say the humanities are useless. However, there is a difference between how STEM folks and humanities folks talk about each other. STEM people never say that critical thinking and communication aren't valuable. In fact, what they say is that anyone seriously studying any discipline should develop those. On the other hand, humanities people often imply that they have some sort of corner on the market for those things, and that quantitative skills aren't really necessary for ordinary people.

A student who works hard should be able to benefit a lot from any discipline. For the students who aren't motivated or industrious, their time and effort will be better spent on developing some sort of practical skills, which may not even involve any higher education.

[spork]

[. . .]

A student who works hard should be able to benefit a lot from any discipline.

I'm seeing fewer and fewer students willing or able to work hard. Given the financial dependence on tuition and auxiliary revenue of many sub-elite colleges and universities, this characteristic has become less important over time for admission and retention.

For the students who aren't motivated or industrious, their time and effort will be better spent on developing some sort of practical skills, which may not even involve any higher education.

Unfortunately many occupations that involve "practical skills" still require motivation, industriousness, and a significant amount of specialized knowledge even if they don't require a college degree. I'm not going to hire any old schmuck off the street to rewire my house or work on my furnace, much less set up a secure LAN for my business. So again, high school graduates who think simply sitting in college classrooms for eight semesters will result in a career with a six-figure starting salary are also probably not the kind of people willing to make the necessary effort for a "practical skills" career.

[apl68]

Unfortunately many occupations that involve "practical skills" still require motivation, industriousness, and a significant amount of specialized knowledge even if they don't require a college degree. I'm not going to hire any old schmuck off the street to rewire my house or work on my furnace, much less set up a secure LAN for my business. So again, high school graduates who think simply sitting in college classrooms for eight semesters will result in a career with a six-figure starting salary are also probably not the kind of people willing to make the necessary effort for a "practical skills" career.

That goes to show another way in which academia's problems go deeper than anything specifically to do with academia.  Those qualities of motivation and industriousness seem to be in awfully short supply in our society now.  That's one reason why, although I believe strongly that there should be more public investment in higher education to reduce the crushing cost of it to students, I'd stop short of making it free to all like K-12 education.  If students don't have to pay something for it--or have not demonstrated, for scholarship purposes, some kind of exceptional promise, however we define that--then universal free college will only swamp our colleges with still more un-motivated, non-industrious students.

[apl68]

Philander Smith College, an HCBU in Little Rock, has announced that they will be laying off 15 faculty and 7 staff, and leaving 29 other positions unfilled. 


https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2021/jan/07/lr-college-sees-enrollment-fall-lays-off-22/?latest


They only had 185 faculty and staff to start with.  They're running a deficit of over $3 million.  Enrollment is down to 804, from 996 in fall of 2019.  That's a decline of almost 20%.

[AmLitHist]

I don't know how my place is staying off this Dire Straits list.  Our enrollment for spring is down 16% district wide; my campus is down 37%. (Yet the chancellor got a 3-year extension with a fat raise--over $300K/year--despite enrollment going down every year he's been here.)

[spork]

Paywalled but worth reading if you have access -- Nathan Grawe discusses the accelerated drop in fertility that is going to crush no-name schools in the U.S. Northeast and Midwest:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-to-navigate-the-demographic-cliff.

[Hibush]

Paywalled but worth reading if you have access -- Nathan Grawe discusses the accelerated drop in fertility that is going to crush no-name schools in the U.S. Northeast and Midwest:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-to-navigate-the-demographic-cliff.

The elite will do fine is one unsurprising message.

They talk quite a bit about remedies, and one is to better recruit and serve segments of the population who would benefit from college but do not currently attend. That is both an enrollment opportunity for  the colleges and a benefit to society. However it is not also a revenue opportunity for the colleges. The article does not address where the money will come from to educate these students; it won't be tuition.

The author is optimistic that colleges can make the mission shift because of the tremendous unexpected agility the have shown in response to Covid. Again, the money part seems to be elided. Agility in short-term survival is one thing. Financial sustainability is another. Most colleges, whether looking good or terrible at this moment, are hemorrhaging money in order to survive the crisis. That model will not translate to college health in responding to the coming demographic changes.

[Cheerful]

They talk quite a bit about remedies, and one is to better recruit and serve segments of the population who would benefit from college but do not currently attend. That is both an enrollment opportunity for  the colleges and a benefit to society.

I didn't read the article.  Which segments and how would they and society benefit from the students going to college and getting (bachelor's?) degrees?

[Hibush]

They talk quite a bit about remedies, and one is to better recruit and serve segments of the population who would benefit from college but do not currently attend. That is both an enrollment opportunity for  the colleges and a benefit to society.

I didn't read the article.  Which segments and how would they and society benefit from the students going to college and getting (bachelor's?) degrees?

Communities with low college-completion among adults tend also to have low enough family incomes that college is both a financial and a social challenge. But there are nevertheless young people in those communities who are prepared for the educational challenges of college and will actually contribute more to society and do better for themselves than if they did not.

I realize that there are efforts to send young people--from all parts of society--who are not prepared for college to attend anyway. That is not what I'm referring to.

There are also highly successful efforts to prevent lower-income people from having opportunities to advance, which leads to the excessive financial disparity in the US. They work in part by promulgating the idea that a college education is always wasted on students from low-income families, and that a college education is solely a private rather than societal good. I oppose that effort as deeply immoral.

[dismalist]

There are also highly successful efforts to prevent lower-income people from having opportunities to advance ... .

Hard to believe. My impression is the opposite. Any examples?

[marshwiggle]

There are also highly successful efforts to prevent lower-income people from having opportunities to advance ... .

Hard to believe. My impression is the opposite. Any examples?

Further to that, is anyone arguing that scholarships* are a bad idea?

*Since scholarships enable academically-capable low income people to attend, then that would be necessary to "prevent lower-income people from having opportunities to advance".

[research_prof]

There are also highly successful efforts to prevent lower-income people from having opportunities to advance ... .

Hard to believe. My impression is the opposite. Any examples?

Further to that, is anyone arguing that scholarships* are a bad idea?

*Since scholarships enable academically-capable low income people to attend, then that would be necessary to "prevent lower-income people from having opportunities to advance".

The real question is not whether scholarships are bad, but how many low-income people are out there that would like to attend a university but cannot attend a university without a scholarship and how many scholarships are available. For example, there are folks out there that believe university is a waste of time and that profs are liberals that have never worked an entire day in their life. If you take a look at the comments posted on certain news outlets, I am sure you will find comments like that. So, I do not believe folks like that might be interested in a scholarship even if they were offered one.

And just to answer my own question: My personal sense is the number of scholarships is still considerable lower than the pool of interested applicants.

[marshwiggle]

There are also highly successful efforts to prevent lower-income people from having opportunities to advance ... .

Hard to believe. My impression is the opposite. Any examples?

Further to that, is anyone arguing that scholarships* are a bad idea?

*Since scholarships enable academically-capable low income people to attend, then that would be necessary to "prevent lower-income people from having opportunities to advance".

The real question is not whether scholarships are bad, but how many low-income people are out there that would like to attend a university but cannot attend a university without a scholarship and how many scholarships are available. Because there are folks out there that believe university is a waste of time and that profs are liberals that have never worked an entire day in their life. If you take a look at the comments posted on certain news outlets, I am sure you will find comments like that.

How many "would like to attend" is not the same as how many "are academically capable of attending". Even setting a very low bar for "scholarships", they should be limited to people who have a high probability of success. Anyone who has taught first year students will know that there are many, even among those NOT from low income homes, that are not prepared.

And since the original claim was that people were actually victims of "efforts to prevent" them from attending, that's a lot more intentional than merely the existence of fewer scholarships than might be desired.