Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[Ruralguy]

No no, you got it wrong Mobius...it's the DIII sports stuff that *builds* the network that you say (s)he doesn't need! How do you think this students gets that darn insurance job? Sometimes it'll fall in his or her lap, sure, but most of the time its because they can return to a place that has other former athletes and other alums of the same or similar colleges.

[Mobius]

I'm not saying you're right or wrong. In my anecdotal evidence (living in a few small towns with SLACs), most employees of those types of business went to generic regional comprehensive. The "hometown stud" (yes, it's usually a male) who was DIII/NAIA athlete at a SLAC gets the fanfare when they triumphantly return after the middling college athletic career.

It would be a very interesting to study the SLAC sports-to-career network, since my data is limited.

[Ruralguy]

The ones I see are just as likely (or more) to go work for big employer 30 miles from home as they are to work for  small-mid sized employer run by their  girlfriend's Dad. I guess either could have its own kind of networking.

[spork]

Baker University:

It's got fewer than 1,500 undergrads. As of FY 2019, FTE undergrad enrollment was 1,435. Probably it is lower than that now.

Negative net revenue for FYs 2015, 2016, 2017. It had positive net revenue of $13.7 million in FY 2014 because of $16 million in contributions yet it was in the red the following year.  Positive net revenue for FYs 2018 and 2019. But maybe things went south again for last year and this year -- definitely possible given the pandemic.

Its endowment is only $34 million. This is a heavily tuition-dependent institution.

[apl68]

Baker University:

It's got fewer than 1,500 undergrads. As of FY 2019, FTE undergrad enrollment was 1,435. Probably it is lower than that now.

Negative net revenue for FYs 2015, 2016, 2017. It had positive net revenue of $13.7 million in FY 2014 because of $16 million in contributions yet it was in the red the following year.  Positive net revenue for FYs 2018 and 2019. But maybe things went south again for last year and this year -- definitely possible given the pandemic.

Its endowment is only $34 million. This is a heavily tuition-dependent institution.

They're quite similar to Alma Mater in number of students.  Alma Mater's endowment is probably in the same ballpark.  Alma Mater hasn't been running such deficits, though.

[dismalist]

The Baker case reminds me that some of what we see may be CEO's engaging in asset stripping. Perfectly rational: The place is going down. Rather than try to save it, spend the endowment [preferably on oneself]!

They can't possibly believe their own accounting: Sixteen million dollars from gifts is not revenue -- it's a windfall, best booked to the endowment, not to revenue.

[lightning]

Parents paying full price so their kids can play lacrosse don't really care about return on investment. Likewise, thee colleges have incentive to throw up a bunch of smoke and mirrors to give parents the warm fuzzies because their kid with average talent can play college sports.

The ROI expected is exactly the networking with the appropriate social class that will lead to a comfortable life.  The formal classes are much less important than having a good enough college degree and many contacts who accept the offspring as one of the in-group.

The status is not college athlete; the status is near upper-middle class with regular interactions with the people who matter through those people's offspring and the alumni network.

Classes only matter for people who will be using a preprofessional major, not for those who are spending four years networking and building social caputal.

I've been around a lot of LAC athletes, and that athlete status matters for many parents. These athletes rarely leave their hometown region after graduation, so they don't need the social network the LAC gives them. Those small town banks or insurance firms love that "former high school star/NAIA-DIII-DII athlete" is working for them, though. Qutting sports in college doesn't help them maintain that "star" status, even though they have connections from being from a family from the right side of the tracks in smallville.

I would really love to see a struggling sLAC business plan that plans on increasing paid enrollment through sports, with enrollment projections based on actual verifiable needs/wants of real potential students. I certainly hope the business plan has some valid market research (primary data & not the BS that all athletic departments, in general, spew out) to backup the assumptions that are made when sports is deemed to be the move that will save a struggling college. Maybe someone can point me to the success stories where this actually worked, which at least provides secondary data as evidence. It seems that every sad sack story I hear of a sLAC college going under, tried to save their school with sports, before the final finishing blow. What saddens me about Baker is that the region of the country that Baker serves doesn't really have a strong Lacrosse following (compared to the northeast). They are doomed.

[spork]

Canceling French and German, and in the next sentence talking about adding Hebrew, Arabic and ASL. Huh.

Makes no sense. There are no existing courses in Hebrew, Arabic, or ASL listed. Baker does not have any program, either undergraduate or graduate, in religion or theology. No undergraduate is going to enroll at Baker because it's hired an adjunct to teach intro Hebrew or Arabic. ASL might have a connection to elementary special ed programs, but I suspect that's already available in Kansas City.

[polly_mer]

There are multiple factors related to athletics at the essentially club level.

* Super Dinky got another fifteenish years by focusing on athletes who just wanted to play and would take out loans to do so.  70% of students entered as athletes and the internal stats indicated coaches did nearly all the recruiting attributed to any one person.  The admissions department was nearly useless because they had nothing to sell in terms of majors or other academic consideration.  It was all about getting to play for four years for love of the game.

*At places like SD, the athletes who now just want to play and aren't already part of the right social set are much less useful to the alumni network, although they are handy for current cash flow.  As birth rate reduction hits, those athletes can probably get in elsewhere, which kills the market at the definitely non-elite colleges for pay to play.

* People who are using college to change social class by networking aren't really about the sport--they are about the access to the "right" people.  That's generally not the situation at the S(mall)LAC.  That's the situation at the S(elective)LAC.  The question for Baker is whether they can smoke and mirror enough to look selective (i.e.,  having sufficient networking opportunities) instead of desperate.  Interestingly, many social climbers aren't very good at gauging what counts as selective enough and Baker might squeak another few years by blatantly catering to the people willing to borrow a lot for college for social climbing instead of reinforcing.

[spork]

[. . .]

The question for Baker is whether they can smoke and mirror enough to look selective (i.e.,  having sufficient networking opportunities) instead of desperate. 

[. . .]

College Scorecard: Baker admits 88% of applicants.

[Wahoo Redux]

[. . .]

The question for Baker is whether they can smoke and mirror enough to look selective (i.e.,  having sufficient networking opportunities) instead of desperate. 

[. . .]

I've worked at two of these which claim a 80-ish percentage acceptance; in the real world this translates to open enrollment 100% acceptance.

College Scorecard: Baker admits 88% of applicants.

[Parasaurolophus]

Mount Holyoke has announced that they're shutting down their childcare center.  Faculty are understandably upset:


https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/03/01/mount-holyoke-abruptly-announces-closure-childcare-center


Not presented explicitly as a cost-cutting measure, but that's the only explanation that makes sense.  They have to have known how bad this would look.  Seems like I recall Mount Holyoke appearing on the "Dire Financial Straits" thread before, here or at the old Fora.

It was revealed recently that they actually made this decision months ago but didn't tell faculty or staff because they didn't want to give them a chance to cry foul. (They said something like "cause distress," but what they meant is pretty clear.)

[Ruralguy]

They have an 800 million endowment for 2300 students. They'll survive. But they might be having trouble meeting enrollment targets, or just for a variety of reasons (numbers too low, or maybe opposite, but couldn't socially distance) with this particular operation.  My school has always said they'll never do onsite childcare. I think regulations do make it harder to do right than you might think.

[Hibush]

The Holyoke article, if I'm reading it right, says the childcare center only served ten families. It was too expensive for many employees, and that is after the $350,000 subsidy.

If that is correct, it was failing to provide affordable child care to Holyoke faculty and employees who needed it.

Quality child care is not cheap to provide, but sending your kid to child care should not cost more than sending your kid to Mt. Holyoke.

[polly_mer]

They have an 800 million endowment for 2300 students. They'll survive. But they might be having trouble meeting enrollment targets, or just for a variety of reasons (numbers too low, or maybe opposite, but couldn't socially distance) with this particular operation. 

At an 88% acceptance rate, Baker must have already hit the problem of not meeting their enrollment targets.  Even SD at the most desperate was only at 65% acceptance and that was after the winter/spring where we held standards and then went back to the reject pool in July to explain how to appeal the admissions process for the people who were still looking for a college and were willing to pay full list price, usually through loans.

However, having watched admissions close up at SD, people who are merely only aspiring to middle-class and get their information from mass media so they think any private college is a big step in social mobility are pretty susceptible to the easy smoke and mirrors.  A beautiful tree-lined campus with clearly historical buildings two blocks walk from the downtown roundabout that is a green space surrounded by shops and the movie theatre makes a good impression.  Selective tours of the best parts of the historic buildings that culminate in the historic dining hall with fancy candles, white table cloths, and the good china with a three-course meal make a great impression.

Even after enrollment to discover the realities of living in old buildings with minimal climate control, a dining hall that is basically a middle-school cafeteria line with two mains and three sides or a sandwich or a salad bar, and practically zero choices for liberal arts electives, people who are trying to get from lower middle class to solidly middle class stay put.  People with options and knowledge transfer almost immediately to something better.