Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[spork]

Number of full-time faculty at Guilford College drops from 99 to 72 over the last two years. Plan is for a 7% endowment draw rather than the usual 5% for 2021-22, coupled with a lower enrollment:

https://greensboro.com/z-no-digital/article_e9edcc28-c562-11eb-bdbf-a3ab6a037868.html.

[Hibush]

Number of full-time faculty at Guilford College drops from 99 to 72 over the last two years. Plan is for a 7% endowment draw rather than the usual 5% for 2021-22, coupled with a lower enrollment:

https://greensboro.com/z-no-digital/article_e9edcc28-c562-11eb-bdbf-a3ab6a037868.html.

Those numbers are consistent with the path the new president has likely been tasked with. Wind down before the endowment is gone.

[secundem_artem]

Artem U had a campus town hall last month.  TL/DR version:

We're not actually in the shit, but we can see it from here.

I think the place is strong enough that we are unlikely to go under any time soon.  But changes are a comin'.

[apl68]

Number of full-time faculty at Guilford College drops from 99 to 72 over the last two years. Plan is for a 7% endowment draw rather than the usual 5% for 2021-22, coupled with a lower enrollment:

https://greensboro.com/z-no-digital/article_e9edcc28-c562-11eb-bdbf-a3ab6a037868.html.

Guilford has been on the "Dire Financial Straits" threads several times in the past few years. 

Over a quarter of their faculty gone in one fell swoop!  That hurts.

[Ruralguy]

If anything like my school, and I actually know that they are, it's probably mostly attrition and adjuncts.
We're not this bad, but we did have to cut some faculty due to low enrollments. Also, we'd never draw this much from endowment.

[TreadingLife]

Here is some unsolicited reading in between the lines from one paragraph in the article linked above.

Hood said college trustees last month approved a budget for the upcoming 2021-22 academic year with a surplus of about $1.3 million.
Thank you CARES Act and the other federal package!

Guilford also plans a one-time draw-down of 7% of its endowment next year instead of the usual 5%. ("It's prudent given what we need," Hood said.)
Yes, because the only thing addressing our structural deficit right now is the federal funding that will end by fall 2022.  Their endowment is only around 75 million, so there is only so much it can do to absorb annual deficits going forward.

Hood said much of the extra money will go toward student financial aid.
Yes, because we are buying students by increasing our discount rate. It went from ~40% in 2010 to ~63% in 2018.

You can search Guilford's metrics on discount rate and enrollment trends here.  Scroll down and then choose "Single Institution" in the table. It took a few seconds for all the data to load.

https://www.highereddatastories.com/2021/01/private-college-and-university-tuition.html

[Ruralguy]

Very common for so-so SLACs, that is to say, the increasing discount rate in particular. The low endowment for them is a killer for sure.

[TreadingLife]

Very common for so-so SLACs, that is to say, the increasing discount rate in particular. The low endowment for them is a killer for sure.

Agreed. I thought about editing my post to say that my so-so SLAC did the exact same thing to its discount rate. Our endowment is almost 4 times the size of theirs though.

[Ruralguy]

Mine is similar...much bigger endowment, high giving rate for now, but plagued by lower enrollment

[DoohickeyTech]

https://i.redd.it/v7dbgc44qa471.png
Supposedly due to too many of the graduates not being able to pay back their loans.

[apl68]

The University of Arkansas has been forbidden by the state legislature from selling over 6,000 acres of land on an old forestry research station to a private buyer for over $16 million.  The planned deal was unpopular with hunters who had been accustomed to having access to the land.  Plus, there's that whole concern about selling public lands to private buyers. 


https://www.kait8.com/2021/06/15/ua-drops-pine-tree-research-station-land-sale/


Not a dire situation, but highlights how institutions of higher education aren't always free to use valuable assets to raise funds.

[Ruralguy]

In general, rural land isn't worth much, especially if it isn't seen as developable.
My campus has about 1000 acres, but probably only the core campus of 100 or so
acres is worth anything, save for some land that either has a house or a new house can be placed on it.

[marshwiggle]

The University of Arkansas has been forbidden by the state legislature from selling over 6,000 acres of land on an old forestry research station to a private buyer for over $16 million.  The planned deal was unpopular with hunters who had been accustomed to having access to the land.  Plus, there's that whole concern about selling public lands to private buyers. 


https://www.kait8.com/2021/06/15/ua-drops-pine-tree-research-station-land-sale/


Not a dire situation, but highlights how institutions of higher education aren't always free to use valuable assets to raise funds.

In a lot of cases, land has been donated to institutions for specific purpose, so legally they can's just use it for something else or get rid of it. Our former church had a large bequest fund, but most of the money was earmarked for specific causes so it couldn't be used for anything else.

[dismalist]

The University of Arkansas has been forbidden by the state legislature from selling over 6,000 acres of land on an old forestry research station to a private buyer for over $16 million.  The planned deal was unpopular with hunters who had been accustomed to having access to the land.  Plus, there's that whole concern about selling public lands to private buyers. 


https://www.kait8.com/2021/06/15/ua-drops-pine-tree-research-station-land-sale/


Not a dire situation, but highlights how institutions of higher education aren't always free to use valuable assets to raise funds.

State contributions to U of Arkansas are almost three times tuition revenue.

He who pays the piper calls the tune!

[Ruralguy]

Much of our endowment is earmarked, but thankfully for useful programs and scholarships. What you don't want is something that must endow 10 million for a professorship in Etruscan at a tiny liberal arts college (not that we would have a shot at that!), or even in  nanotechnology (something we can't support with the requisite lab space).