This Week In College Viability (TWICV) Sep 21, 2026

Gary Stocker (00:00.926)
It is Monday, September 21st, 2026. Hi everybody, Gary Stalker back in front of the Blue Yeti Microphone with yet another podcast episode of This Week in College Viability News and Commentary. And of course, this is the podcast that talks about the financial health and viability of public and private colleges with data and with details and perspectives offered nowhere else. And I want to start off today's show.

With something I saw from Trace Gallagher at Fox News, and don't read any politics into this. Trace Gallagher of Fox News writes Every night, I pick up something in the news and I put it through my own filter of hard earned common sense. He goes on to write, You know how TV news works. Every time a major news story breaks, especially a political one, the spin machines start cranking out at maximum volume. Suddenly you've got a panel of experts, alleged,

like flooding your screen, telling you what you just saw with your own two eyes isn't actually happening. They'll look you in the face and insist everything is deeply nuanced and incredibly complex. But let's be realistic, he writes, most of the time it is not complex at all. Trace Gallagher of Fox News concludes, My job is simple. Even if it's harder than it looks, I react like a normal, intelligent person who's been around the block a few times, seen the games people play.

And isn't buying the nonsense anymore. You see it, I see it, and we're going to call it exactly like it is. That's why we call it the common sense department. I think that's the show name for what he does. Now, I do the same thing. That's why I grabbed this. I do the same thing with higher education. I see plenty of higher education diagnosticians identifying problems and offering solutions, and that's fine.

There is an audience for that work, and many of those solutions have merit for sure. But I think to stay consistent with what Trace Gallagher says, I think we have a tree and forest common sense problem. Most of the discussion, most of the writing, most of the posts I see, almost all, are about the trees, about the colleges. How does this college increase enrollment? How does that college cut costs? What new programs?

Gary Stocker (02:26.104)
Should another college launch? Should it expand online athletic at athletics, improve retention, recruit internationally, raise more money, or hire another enrollment, yet another enrollment consultant? These are all tree level questions. Lots of trees out there, too many trees out there. The forest the forest is telling us something much more uncomfortable.

There may simply be too many colleges, too many trees, to keep the analogy, too many colleges, too many trees chasing too few students, and too little net tuition revenue. And and if that is true, then it is. We can't solve the problem by fixing every tree, by fixing every college. Every college cannot grow enrollment faster than the market. Every college cannot solve its financial problems by taking students from another college.

Every college cannot launch the same high demand programs and expend expect them all to generate materially significant new net revenue. At some point, we have to stop asking only how do we save this college. We also have to ask, or we have to ask, how much higher education capacity, how much higher education capacity does this market actually need? And that changes.

That changes the conversation. The future of higher education may not be about finding a turnaround strategy or a fix for every financially struggling institution.

It may increasingly be about determining which institutions have financially and even operationally sustainable models, which need fundamentally different different operating structures, which should collaborate or consolidate merge, and which may no longer be viable, which may no longer be viable as independent organizations.

Gary Stocker (04:32.67)
It may be watching to see which college students choose which colleges and which they do not. That's what's happening. Students are choosing. It's the students and their families that will determine. There's no other way around it.

And what we do here at college viability is we are increasingly interested in what the forest is telling us. There's too many colleges, just simply too many colleges in this country. Page two: a new Lucian survey finds that 56% of college students are employed full-time. That's a big number. That's got to include some full-time adult students as well.

And 89%, same Malucian survey, 89% would change schools, would change colleges for more scholarship aid. How's that for loyalty? This came out August 16th. It was a Lucian website post. Here are the key highlights more than 56% of today's college students are employed full time while earning their degrees, redefining the traditional student experience. It doesn't really say if adult learners were part of that or not. Most students, 89%, like I said at the top of the story.

Would go somewhere else for more money, for more discounts. excuse me, scholarships.

For more merit aid. And students are c increasingly focused on career outcomes with 74% wanting career pathways and salary data in their degree plans, and yet only four percent say their institutions provide that. And again, my college viability, one long word. Mycollege viability dot com does that in large part for what students are looking for.

Gary Stocker (06:26.818)
How about some spin and how about some reality checks? Southeastern Louisiana University. The headline reads Southeastern Louisiana University increases enrollment in the fall semester. This is from WRBZ Charlet. Charley Thomas had the story on September 18th. I've got a I'll post this the College Viability Inspection Report for Southeastern Louisiana University. Not that good. And I'm going to read first, right? I'm going to read first the quote from the president.

President William S. Wainwright at Southeastern Louisiana University. Our continued enrollment growth, and that was the focus of the story, our continued enrollment growth reflects the confidence students and families have in Southeastern and the value of a Southeastern education, said President William S. Wainwright. Growth among among incoming freshmen, honors transfer, and graduate students demonstrates the impact of strategic investments in how we serve our students, thus said the president's.

Says this said the president to the data. We go to the four-year graduation rate data. We go nowhere at all referenced in the press release. In the last four years, 2021 through 2024. The four-year graduation rates, I'll read them off, Southeastern Louisiana State University, 17%, 18%, 18% again, 19%, and jumped up to 24% in the last reported year, 2024.

four, I believe that is.

They're graduating less than one in five students on average over the last five reported years.

Gary Stocker (08:05.708)
And what's the headline read? Increases enrollment in the follow semester. That's fine, they can do that. But I'll bet you a buck fifty that come the commencement ceremony this coming May, May of twenty twenty seven, I bet President William S. Wayne Ray does not stand in front of the gathering and say, Hey, we're only graduating one in five students. I bet he doesn't say that. And where's the cred where's the accreditor? Huh? Where's the local media?

This is a regurgitation story. Why is a guy from Colorado? That's me. Why is a guy from Colorado having to point this out? Now I had somebody drop me a note, because I posted this on LinkedIn, I think Sunday sometime, saying, well, they jumped up to 24%. And he was right. And he said they're trending in the right direction. And yeah, 17, 18, 18, 19, 24, all right, that's trending upward over five years. That would be seven percentage points.

Extrapolate that out over another five years or up to thirty-one percent, another five years or up to thirty eight percent, ten years out there, not even fifty percent.

Gary Stocker (09:14.198)
Tragedy that we let colleges get away with this. Somebody in Louisiana, besides the guy from Colorado, me, needs to take this story, take these stories. They're not the only ones, you know that. Take this story and run with it. This is just a sad commentary. And if a student wants to go to southeastern Louisiana and they understand they're the odds of graduating are less than one in five, great. But let them know.

Let them know for every five students they walk by in on the sidewalks at Southeastern, only one of them is gonna graduate in four years.

See what that does to the enrollment announcement next year. New Hampshire, changing, New Hampshire's changing college landscape. Scott Merrill, who does a lot of good writing at Business News, wrote this for Business New Hampshire. This might be syndicated from somewhere. And he writes: all right, and this is a quote from his story. This is Scott Merrill on September 11th. New Hampshire's colleges and universities created $17.1 billion in total economic impact, supporting 114,000 plus jobs.

And contributing $636 million in local, state, and tax revenue, according to a 2025 report by the New Hampshire College and University Council. Let me quote you that source again: the New Hampshire College and University Council saying, hey, we do really good stuff in our colleges.

Gary Stocker (10:49.08)
So the story goes on across New England, colleges reported about a 2% decline in deposits. Across New England, deposits decline, 2% decline in deposits on May 1st. That was from Kim Dirigo, who's a vice provost of enrollment at the University of New Hampshire. A lot of institutions around us saw a decline, so we were really, really pleased that we saw an increase in our students.

Gary Stocker (11:17.71)
I guess there's a reference in there to increase in students. I didn't see that.

And then they go on to say, in citing a source, the twenty twenty five first destination survey by the University of Ugata, New Hampshire.

Full-time salary, graduates, according to the 2025 First Destination Survey by the University of New Hampshire, was $80,000 in change, almost $81,000. And let's go to some independent data and not from something generated from a vested interest in New Hampshire. So I use Gemini. All right, I could have used any source. I use Gemini.

The projected average starting salary for a 2025 college graduate nationwide is $68,000 in change, not $80,000. And that's not what they said in New Hampshire, they it was just New Hampshire. $68,000. While recent graduates specifically from New Hampshire colleges, Jamini goes on to cite, typically see median salaries between $48 $49,000. Now, somebody is coming up with some funky numbers. Now

I will grant you maybe it's Gemini. But I will also grant you that relying on the source with a vested interest is a dangerous proposition. And across the country, just some national projected starting salaries from 2025. Engineering 78,000. Computer science 76. Social sciences 67. Agriculture 63. Communications 60,000. What this is, this is this is this is a vested interest organization throwing numbers against the wall.

Gary Stocker (12:58.658)
Trying to make New Hampshire colleges look good. And that's fine. They're welcome to do that. That's why I'm here.

And I've said this before and I I sadly I think I'm getting up saying this a lot. It is part of what appears to be a a higher education industry, and I don't think it's organized, but a higher education industry effort to battle the real perception that this is an industry in decline, and that is a real perception, that's a real reality.

And then what point is this New Hampshire Day? So news story, Yasmin Sadi had this story on September 17th and Concord Monitor. UNH, University of New Hampshire, increases financial aid, awarding a record $40 million to incoming class. All right, fine. The average student award was more than $16,000, increased from $12,000 and changed last year, so $3,000 plus. Ms. Sadi goes on to write.

Last year, 88%, 88% of the freshman class received financial aid, pretty typical number, with an average reward of 12,400. It's climbed to 16,000. We just talked about that. With almost every enrolled student, 96%, receiving financial aid, according to the university spokesperson, Tanya de Luzariaga. Here is what the provost had to say. Kimberly Durago said the increase in aid.

Listen closely. The increase in aid was not due to more public funding, so not more dollars from the state of New Hampshire. Rather, Durego said, the university made changes to its guidelines around financial aid, made changes around its guidelines of financial aid that allowed it to increase some of its merit and need-based scholarships.

Gary Stocker (14:50.05)
No, I pause tact tactically here. An increase to some merit and need-based scholarships altogether. Now, what is that really called? Yeah, discounts. Yeah. So they're offering more unfunded discounts in the state of New Hampshire, which is fine. They're welcome to do that, but what it's not contributing any revenue to the colleges. What does that how does that impact everything from salaries?

To investments, to campus safety, to maintenance, all those kind of things. Page three.

No headline on this, and this one's mine. Sorry, I don't understand. So the rush to the three year degree is something that's popping up all over the place. And I think the last time I saw a hundred Samad colleges have started one. And I I understand it's not for all majors, it's for a select set of majors that may or may not change. But I haven't found anybody talking about the lost tuition and fees.

associated with moving a student from a four year degree to a three-year degree. Now I'm all for efficiency. You can get it done in three years, get it done. But why are we not in an in an era when financial health is a big, big deal?

Why does this change? Why does this move to a four three year degree include some kind of consideration for the financial losses that college rules will have from going from four years to three years? So that's a tw essentially a twenty five percent decline in revenue for each major, not for th for all majors, I understand.

Gary Stocker (16:36.888)
How's that being compensated for? Colleges certainly can't raise their tuition 25% for those three-year programs, three-year programs to complete your majors. And then what happens next? Do we have a two-year bachelor's degree and then a one-year bachelor's degree? There was one college tried that, they got caught. There's already a race to the bottom on pricing. We've already talked about the Walmart approach for pricing. Are we going to see the same thing for degrees, a race to the bottom?

Just so these colleges can generate the revenue they needed to meet their budgets. And again, that's why we we do what we do here at College Riability, put tools in place, make them available. They're all free right now. The College Riability Inspection Report, the College Decision Lens, the College Majors Completion App, all available free because we want students and families to be able to have the data to be able to make at least a more informed decision. We talked about southeastern Louisiana earlier.

You know, if you know they have a twenty percent, twenty five percent graduation rate and you wanna still want to go there, that's fine. But if you don't know that and you go there because you think it's a eighty percent graduation rate 'cause nobody told you different, that's not good.

Moving on, the accreditation fight over who controls higher education. Scott White, again, another story too for him this week. He's a contributor of Forbes. The story came down on September nineteenth. And like all all podcast episodes I have, I will post the link for you. And and Mr. White writes, Scott White writes, say that fast. Accreditation is one of the least understood, the most powerful forces in American higher education.

Gary Stocker (18:21.932)
Creditors determine whether colleges meet basic quality standards and whether credits transfer, whether pro professional programs satisfy licensing requirements, and most importantly whether institutions can get money, participate in the federal student aid system.

And and and all right, well written, properly written, but giving these accreditors way too much credit without any kind of independent oversight. First, as I said many times before, remember where the paychecks for tick accreditors come from. The paychecks for accreditors come from colleges. They come from the colleges they evaluate.

Gary Stocker (19:05.005)
I'll let you draw your own conclusions on how aggressive accreditors will be on the people and organizations who write their paychecks. Should have probably thought about a sarcasm alert there. And second, these these accreditors, even though the description from Mr. White is fair, these accreditors have shown almost no ability, almost zero ability to warn consumers about colleges in trouble. Whether it's financial trouble, academic quality, whatever.

And and remember I look at the financial health of colleges every day.

Gary Stocker (19:39.658)
And and and there are scores of colleges without the financial resources to provide a quality college education. And it's reasonable to project, it's reasonable to project that many of those same colleges cannot and will not survive.

Now, the pushback that I'm gonna get, and this is fine, some will say that it's not the job of accreditors to warn students. Some will say that it's not the job of accreditors to warn students. Okay. Say so. Let the world know that caveat empty, let the buyer beware for colleges. Let us know that students are on their own in determining the financial health and even quality of a college education.

Gary Stocker (20:26.444)
And again, that's why we exist at college viability because we're an independent source for that. And we do we can do that today. We can do that today through those tools I told you about. I'll make sure there's links in the show notes.

Gary Stocker (20:43.374)
And even you, a s a sidebar that I haven't talked about.

accreditors don't e don't look at the number of completed majors. They may approve a major, they may approve expansion of major, but they don't look at whether a college is offering whether a college has five people completing that major on average per year, or 50 or 500. And that matters. That matters a lot. Page four. Are low-quality colleges making a comeback? Preston Cooper had this story at the American Enterprise Institute.

on March twelfth, and and Mr. Cooper writes good stuff. I have quoted his content, probably had his sh his articles on previous shows, and as I saw the headline, I think it was over the weekend. This one suggests I have a lot of work to do, that I still have a lot of work to do. And that work involves helping parents get an easy to understand tool, get our easy to understand apps so they can make a more informed college decision because

Mr. Cooper is suggesting that low quality colleges with l with poor graduation rates and other outcomes are making a comeback. And here's what's going on. This is the tuition price issue. These low quality colleges making a comeback, they are making the tuition price solo.

Gary Stocker (22:07.756)
that's kind of become, you know, the the Walmart of col Walmart of colleges. Low prices. They have low prices like Walmart promotes, but they don't always deliver the education goods.

And and there is a mindset in these colleges. There is a mindset in many colleges, not just these, that they will do whatever it takes to keep their doors open, even if it involves recruiting and enrolling academically, unprepared, and financially incapable students. And here's how Preston Cooper ends his story. Consumer choice is a powerful tool.

Students were fleeing low quality colleges and reshaping the higher education system long ago, long before regulators caught on. But the rebound in enrollment at low quality institutions is a sign that polymak policymakers, a sign that policymakers still have a role to play in holding federally funded colleges accountable for poor outcomes. And you can take outcomes quite a few ways. Otherwise, he says, he writes.

Otherwise, Mr. Cooper writes, student numbers at bad schools, enrollment at bad schools, may continue to climb. And we're gonna have to deal with the fallout of broken promises. Now you know I'm going with this.

Creditors have said this so many times. They are so focused on dotting I's and crossing T's that they ignore low graduation rates. They ignore poor financial health almost always until it's too late. And they do so in my mind.

Gary Stocker (23:48.066)
Because they have that conflict of interest. Now they say they will tell you they have systems and processes in place to to avoid this, but accreditors get their revenues. Accreditors get their revenues from the colleges they accredited.

Gary Stocker (24:06.986)
And let's do a wrap.

And it the higher education industry is trying to fight a market reality. And you can't do that. Markets are markets. Markets always adjust. Individuals make decisions, usually on the margins, about everything from cars and clothes to computers and colleges. The forest and tree analogy that I shared at the top of the show holds true. And until some significant number of colleges close or maybe merge, there will continue to be intense downward pressure.

On tuition and fees revenues. Only when there is some balance between the number of colleges and the number of students willing to pay to go to those colleges, will the financial trauma become much less. And in all of this, in all of this, there will still be millions of college students who go to college, gain a great academic and career value from that college, and lead a financially productive life.

It is, however, those on the margins, the ones are caught the ones that colleges are marketing to to simply drive tuition revenue to meet their budgets. Those will and continue to be the students who suffer either a poor college education or debt or both.

Gary Stocker (25:33.152)
As always, I am grateful for those who make time to listen to the podcast. Don't be a podcast hog. Make sure to share the podcast link with those in higher education, with friends and family and neighbors looking at colleges for their children to make sure that they get the chance to make a more informed decision with the new tools that are out there. At College Viability, I'm Gary Stocker. We'll be back next Monday.