This Week In College Viability (TWICV) for May 13, 2024

Gary (00:02.478)
It is May 13th, 2024. That makes it a Monday and that makes it time for another episode of This Week in College Viability. Hi everybody. It's Gary Stocker again back with you this week. Where are we headed? How about a look at St. Clouds? St. Clouds states plan to cut 46 degrees. This is after years of watching enrollment plummet. We're going to talk about iDotters and T -Crossers again. High schools.

are bracing for widespread teacher layoffs. This is the first topic for the podcast and I'll talk about why. And we have another spin, spin, spin, this time at Illinois Institute of Technology here in Illinois. And then the St. Louis Post -Dispatch. Quoters source and predicted some college closures in this region. I'm going to talk about that. And then of what's probably still called up at Cleveland .com, the editor at Cleveland .com had a headline that read,

buffoonery, incompetence, and lies. And he went on to say, this is in the context of a couple of politicians up in Cleveland. He goes on to report that our job though is to call them out so we do. And I'm going to draw a connection to what the editor at thecleveland .com does and what we do here at collegeviability .com. And no way am I going to call college leaders buffoons, incompetent, or liars. That's not the case. But to call out some other things, that's really what we do here at College Viability.

Layoffs and cutbacks have no actual closures this week. That's kind of a first for quite a while. A matter of right sizing. St. Cloud State, but that's Minnesota, plans to cut 46 degrees. That's the headline. And according to the acting president, that always tells me something, the acting president at this Minnesota university says they still have a strong revenue base and they do. They've got 10 ,000 some odd students that provide some tuition and fee revenue.

but face too high expenses. Again, that again is according to its acting president. This is a story from Ben Unglesby at Higher Education Dive on May 8th. They want to cut 46 degrees. This is from 136 down to 90. And they want to cut minors from 85 down to 35. This is from Ben Unglesby's story. Boys and girls, for effectively a decade or more,

Gary (02:24.046)
The leadership, and I presume it predates the acting president, the leadership at St. Cloud has sat back and watched as enrollment plummeted, it's down 44 % and did, did nothing. And that, that is a typical commentary on higher education today. Wait, wait, don't act, don't act, wait some more, wait some more, don't act. And when there's a public push or they get so far down the financial drain that they have to do something.

That's when it's a day late and a dollar short kind of approach. Now, the folks at St. Cloud State have to effectively take an academic bulldozer to almost 100 programs. How many lives of faculty and staff, students and others will be negatively impacted? How many other public and private colleges are in the same situation? Now, I know the numbers for St. Cloud State, it's they're cutting 56, they're proposing to cut 57 full -time faculty.

and 42 staff positions. Stay tuned. Stay tuned for the faculty response and the inevitable vote of no confidence in the acting president. Goodness gracious. Number two, the acquittal of Keystone College. I might have touched on this last week. The Middle States Commission on Higher Education warns of misleading information circulating about Keystone College in Pennsylvania and their dire straits and students.

The subheading reads in this title, this is from Ryan Quinn and Inside Higher Ed. Students can't be sure their college will exist come this fall. So the day after Middle State says, hey, College, Keystone College are putting out misleading information. Keystone's president, he's just the current president, not an acting one, Mr. John Pulo, I hope I pronounced that right, sent letters to the faculty, staff and students about the situation. And the college posted a statement on its website. And I'll read that. You should remain hopeful.

about your ability to continue your education at Keystone in the days ahead. I don't know if we meant to say days ahead. That's pretty short. He wrote to students. This is the president, John Poole. And the college's April 26 post said that the college is, get this now, we've heard this before, is continuing to pursue discussions with an unnamed, my word, an unnamed investment partner to secure an agreement, which would be in the best interest of Keystone.

Gary (04:51.214)
its students and the entire college community.

Okay. Folks, do you know how many, you don't know, but how many social media notes I get agreeing with me that these colleges on their financial deaths doorstep should go ahead and close? I get lots, lots. Keystone College and the real president, not the acting one, Keystone College, please join, currently please join Northland College in Wisconsin.

Do your faculty, your staff, your community, your students a favor and find someone, someone please to turn off the lights.

Jeez. Page two. On the other hand, I don't get that much affirmation from others. Unlike the Keystone College before, Keystone College story before, I don't get that much affirmation from others on my belief, and I've said this many times, that accrediting agencies are not much more than i .dotters and t .crossers. Now, this story comes from an email message that I was copied on.

And so I don't have a link to this. I'm not going to share the email with you. And it was from someone that was working with the college. And they were, as I understand it, putting together a proposal to get this college into a partnership. And the folks at Middle States, the Middle States College Commission we talked about a minute ago, were so busy, were so involved with college closings that they made looking at a partnership for whatever college this was, it was way down on their action list.

Gary (06:37.326)
And so this person was intimating that this particular accrediting agency, Middle States, doesn't really seem to have their priorities in disarray. They're doing post mortems. They suggested or preparing to do post mortems on closing colleges instead of focusing on systems processes and methods for other colleges that maybe don't have to close to stay open. And finally, this person adds, he's not confident, he or she, I can't remember.

I was not confident that they even look, the accrediting agency, even look at the financials in a meaningful way. And I've shared this before.

The crediting agencies could serve a role to give students and families, faculty and staff for that matter, a heads up when a college is in trouble, but it's always a last minute kind of thing, or they get in the way of potential mergers or partnerships. And you saw my letter to the crediting agency a couple of weeks ago when I suggested, I asked, knowing it wouldn't happen, that they get out of the way of colleges that want to merge or otherwise find partnerships. All they're doing is slowing down the process.

and almost guaranteeing more college closures than we're going to see anyway. So we've talked about Google Alerts and I have a lot of them. And so I get a lot of email posts, some are garbage, but many of them have some value. And one that's been popping up the last six to 12 months or so is associated with one of my Google Alerts is high school layoffs. And there was a story on May 11th this past weekend from Washington, CNN, from CNN in Washington, Katie Labosco.

And the essence of her story, and I'll read paraphrase what she said, schools across the country are announcing teacher and staff layoffs as districts braced for the end of a pandemic aid package that delivered the one, the largest one -time federal investment in K through 12 education. Many districts, she continues, have warned of layoffs as the current school year comes to a close and next year's budgets are planned.

Gary (08:46.766)
The local headlines about teachers likely won't help Americans who remain stubbornly pessimistic about the economy. And it goes on with some more details that are political and I'm not going to go into politics. And this is a heads up story. The reason I threw this in today's podcast is I've seen this over the last many months as I shared, because its impact, if true, and I have to believe it's true in some substantive form or fashion, its impact, it impacts.

future college enrollment across the country. And I don't know where it's going yet, where this college, this high school layoff is going yet, but I do know that I'm going to be paying a little bit more attention to my Google alert links to see, to look more closely at what trends might be developing with, I guess, private high schools in particular, but maybe publics as well with layoffs of faculty and staff. Moving on, Illinois Institute of Technology.

sees unprecedented growth as undergraduate applications and admissions surge 35%. Now, if you've listened to me before, you're any consumer in any substance of higher education. When I said the words applications and admissions, you probably had a frown cross your face because in both cases, they don't mean that much. Applications are one way. Admissions are one way. The college admits someone doesn't mean they're going to show up.

And of course, colleges are welcome to spin things any way they want. I have no issue with that, but that's one of the reasons I'm here is to say, hey, as your college financial quality control advocate, I'm going to give you the data unfiltered with PR spin. And this is, it's not false marketing because the data is true, but it's delusional marketing. It's an internal PR release, so they're entitled and nothing wrong with that.

So I'm going to go to the data here in a second, but they start off, the good folks at Illinois Institute of Technology, they start off patting themselves on the back for increased applications. I've talked about this before. Applying to college today is as easy as adding another topping on your pizza. Click a box, add an extra ingredient, or in this case, application is on its way. Most.

Gary (11:14.286)
But not all colleges have increased applications. That means nothing. That means they've got more folks clicking a box, just like when you order a pizza. So let's look at the data at IIT, Illinois Institute of Technology. And this is from 2022. For every dollar in expenses, they had 80 cents in revenue. So doing the math, for those of you that skipped math class in high school and college, they're losing 20 cents for every dollar they have in expenses. That's not a good number.

Their expenses per student, per FTE student, the standard that I use, were about $10 ,000 higher than the revenues per full -time equivalent student. That's reflected in the previous one with earning only 80 cents on the dollar invested in expenses. And over the past eight years, this is from 2015 to 2022, their FTE enrollment is down about a thousand students. All right, I think new there. Interestingly, their four -year graduation rates not too good at 37%.

but their six year graduation rate is at 72%, almost double. I don't know if that's me missing something or them not reporting it well. That's quite the jump from four years to six years. I might look at that down the road. Choosing on free revenue has decreased $39 million. That's not good. But IIT, the Illinois Institute of Technology, does have a strong endowment, really strong endowment, 300 million. And their retention is also pretty strong, really is quite strong, at 90%. And here's a quote.

from Malik Sundaram, the Illinois Tech Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs. He says, I'll try not to giggle, this remarkable surge in applications and admissions is a testament to the growing recognition of Illinois Tech's multidisciplinary degrees, which are centered on experiential learning, pedagogy, and yield exceptional career outcomes for graduates.

Applications and admissions mean nothing. They don't cite any data on career outcomes and experiential learning pedagogy. I'm not even sure what that means. So folks, here's the bottom line. IIT is not, not going to close. They've got some good offerings. They have a niche. And they're certainly going to have to make some budget adjustments, content adjustments, maybe. I'm just baffled by they let the PR folks put out such a weak, weak.

Gary (13:38.574)
story when they're really probably not in that much trouble. Now, maybe two months ago we had the story and that was across the wires that Fontbonne University here in St. Louis is closing. The Post Dispatch made another story here in St. Louis last Friday. Fontbonne University is closing which we knew. Which other colleges are at risk of shutting down? I'll include the link that's behind the paywall in the show notes. Now, I don't know that St. Louis is quite yet.

quite yet a hotbed for college closures, but the St. Louis Post -Dispatch, God bless them, is certainly on the leading edge, I believe, of tracking the status and risks of private colleges in the region. Now, the reporters went so far, using another source, went so far as to list colleges in trouble at risk, was the term they used, and this was according to the Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis. The Scholarship Foundation released a watch list in March of this year.

of 37 Midwestern colleges, although I think it might be on the Midwest, in danger of closing due to significant financial distress in the past five years. I went and looked at their website. The best I can tell, all they're using is the Forbes financial grades of colleges to identify those colleges at risk, because the list included some that I would never put on an at -risk list, because I don't think it's substantive. But the story reads, I'm going to read from the story.

The at -risk campuses, according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch story, include Maryville University, Missouri Baptist, and William Woods Universities. Schools in the region listed as especially perilous, Harris Stowe, McKendree University, which is on the Illinois side, and Quincy University, also on the Illinois side, Webster, and Fontbonne. And of course, Fontbonne had announced their closure in March of this year.

Gary (15:30.766)
Now, I said this before and I'm going to say it again. I am not about and I won't predict which colleges will close. I have my own list. It's 230 some odd colleges long. I have my own ideas. But I don't care for the pushback and the potential litigation that would come with me making a prediction that any given college will close. That's not my job. My business model at college viability is to provide the college viability series of apps for public and private.

executive users, faculty and staff, students and their families, to let those folks compare colleges, whether they're running those colleges, teaching those colleges, or just considering those colleges for a degree. And that's what I'm here for. Yeah, I poke the higher ed bear. I do that with intent. I do use the app to take colleges to task, like I did previously with Illinois Institute of Technology, when they spin the we're okay stories and I don't believe that they are okay.

And I want to go with a slightly different tack here. I've shared previously that I am increasingly concerned about uptaking college closures this fall because of the FAFSA mess and the general downward trend in higher education. If you're a college leader, get the app. Spend the bucks to compare your college against others.

across more than 30 iPads reports and don't tell me you've got folks to do that because they can't or they don't or they won't. If you're in faculty and staff, spend a couple bucks to look at the nine reports so that you compare either your public or private college against your peers. Students and family, five reports. Spend 30 bucks, students and families, to compare colleges across five reports over the last eight years. Page four.

Cleveland .com in a letter from the editor, Chris Quinn, the headline reads, buffoonery in competence and lies. Now this has to do with two politicians in the Cleveland area, actually more than that, but the essence of it is politicians in the Cleveland area caught in demonstrable lies. And the Cleveland .com folks did exceptional work in demonstrating these lives. And the details are unimportant. You can imagine them. The details are unimportant for this podcast, but the reason...

Gary (17:51.918)
I latched onto this story as a final quote from Chris Quinn, again, the editor of cleveland .com. His quote is, our job though is to call them out. He's talking about politicians, so we do. Our job though is to call them out, so we do. Now I am not about to call college leaders or faculty buffoons, incompetent or liars. In almost all cases they are not.

but you've heard me call them out as spinners and they are certainly guilty of that. Nothing wrong. It's not completely first class, but we're entitled to have that spin. That's why I'm here to make sure that when they spin it, I can add the actual data to it.

It's just it's. That's why I'm here to call them out, just like Chris Quinn at Cleveland .com when colleges are sharing stuff that's not completely true or they're using data points that are not or are not reflective of their true situation. That's what I'm here for. I am your quality control specialist on this end of the microphone. So let's wrap this episode up. And I'm hearing more.

more and more informed speculation about a federal bailout of private colleges this fall. And I think it's in conjunction with the FAFSA mess and the overall bad market trends we talked about earlier. And the details, if it even develops, are not important for now. I have no idea what those details will look like. But what I do want to do is I want to look beyond a bailout, just kind of a scenario planning or whatever it's called, bailout, whatever, and its impact on the market, probably not right away.

So first, it will cover a bailout, will cover the FAFSA calamity. All right, that's logical. The government broke it, you buy it. You broke it, you buy it. All right, I can understand that. But the real issue that I want to look at in the coming weeks and months after any kind of bailout is what happens afterwards, whether it's a federal or maybe even state bailout. The basics of the market will not have changed.

Gary (20:10.806)
cultural perceptions of colleges will not have changed.

Gary (20:22.35)
interest or lack of interest in a college degree will not have changed. And as I sit here in mid -May 2024, I don't see any long -term value of an election year bailout for colleges in trouble. Like the COVID funds, once they are used up, whatever they look like, college closures are almost certain to start up again.

This is just a market that is consolidating. Any artificial involvement by public entities, federal or state, even local, aren't gonna change the market dynamics. I'm still gonna be developing college viability apps. I'm still gonna be tracking graduation rates, which are abysmal, and enrollment numbers.

Gary (21:12.142)
Think about that in the coming weeks. What happens if the predictions, the developing predictions of massive numbers of closures, dozens of closures per month happens? And what if there is or is not a federal bailout? Until next Monday, when we do this again, my name is Gary Stocker with this week in college viability. Thanks for making time to listen. We'll do it again in seven days.