This Week In College Viability (TWICV) for October 21, 2024
Gary (00:01.286)
It is this week in college viability for October 21st, 2024. Hi, I'm Gary Stocker and I am glad to be back recording on my regular Monday schedule, all messed up last week and up recording on Wednesday. I'm going to do something to start off this week's podcast that I haven't done in, I don't think before on the podcast and I have a correction. Wittenberg University, I had them on the podcast last week.
And I reported that they had submitted an admissions update report to their bondholders in response to broken covenants. And that turned out not to be true. Their folks reached out to me and said, Gary, that's just a standard request. It's not a result of a covenant violation. So I missed that one. I'm going to make sure that I get that back out, that it was just a standard report. And also during that same part of last week's podcast, I made a reference to the enrollment was down 200 students. That was a little high.
It was down not that much at all. It's 160 some odd students over many years and just 40 some odd students from one year to the next. So thanks to the good folks at Wittenberg for reaching out and saying, hey, Gary, you missed those. And as I shared with them, and on the rare occasion, and this might be the first occasion, when I do have an error in data, when I do have an error in context, I will drop everything to correct data and other factual errors in any media that.
I do. This week, I of course have stories on cutbacks and layoffs almost every week. An interesting piece, a data piece from the Chronicle of Higher Education, where are the white students? Kind of a surprising storyline. Following up on that, I have another one from Ryan Craig, almost always has fabulous stuff. And he's got a piece on college for all is bad for boys. I have two stories about strong colleges with serious financial challenges and I've touched on that theme.
in weeks gone by and St. Louis U that I've talked about before and Brandeis University up in Massachusetts that I have not talked about before. Plus, of course, much, much more layoffs and cutbacks. Western Washington University to NICS about 55 jobs amid an 18 million dollar budget cut. And this is from our good friend Ben Unglesby and higher education dive on October 16th. The public institution, Western Washington University.
Gary (02:24.938)
blame the structural deficit in part on lingering pandemic revenue shortfalls, salary increases, and inflation. And I don't doubt for a second that those are true components. I don't know that that would be the whole story, but that's, again, for the good folks at Western Washington University to work their way through. They plan to eliminate 55 positions, cut its budget by 8 % or $18 million. And they do note in the story, Ben notes in the story that while Western Washington's enrollment
has improved some since the pandemic. It attributes its budget woes to lingering pandemic revenue shortfalls. Okay, we'll give them that. Back to SLU, this week they announced, or last week I guess it was, they announced 23 staff members laid off amid SLU's ongoing financial struggles. There were a lot of news outlets reporting on this, and this is the one I'm using is from their internal student newspaper, I believe. It was reported that SLU has finalized its layoff of 23 staff, not faculty, but staff.
and they're not filling 100 other positions. I'd have to check to make sure if those are faculty and staff. I don't recall off the top. I only share this like I did last week because SLU is upfront. SLU is upfront about their efforts to get to a balanced budget. In too many scenarios, as I follow this stuff, and know I follow it closely, colleges are not being upfront. They're trying to hide their weaknesses. So kudos to St. Louis University. It's a strong college.
As I've said before, and I guess I'll say again, it's a strong college with great graduation rates, yet it is still fighting significant market pressures to maintain a positive revenue and expense mix. Let's go from the middle part of the country to Portland State. Portland State University may lay off dozens of faculty, and this is reported at Portland Axios on October 17th, and Myra Gabel, G-E-B-L, was the reporter. Nearly 100 non-tenure faculty.
At Portland State University, we see potential layoff notices. This is one of the largest colleges in Portland, faces another $18 million deficit. That's what we saw with Washington, Interesting. Why it matters, it's big. Termination letters will go to those impacted by mid-December for positions that will be terminated at the end of the coming academic year. So I presume May, June of 2025. And this came from a couple of spokesfolks at Portland State University.
Gary (04:50.486)
And they're giving six months notice, again, credit to them for getting on top of this. But it's an overall indication of challenges both across the public and private college markets. And at Penn State, the enrollment is down 3,200 and change from 4,200 and change in 2021.
The pattern exists. Page two. I want to thank the good folks at the Chronicle of Higher Education. They always have good content, of course, but I want to thank them for their pricing guidance. Their pricing guidance on my much more thorough and easier to use college viability program completion app. So they sent out, think it was the email piece that I saw, they sent out a sample data set and it looks like the program completion data, I guess, from the Chronicle.
It's just a CSV, just a spreadsheet file, and it looks like it just contains one year. Now they may have a version that contains more than one years. Now, thanks to them, they priced it at one end, $199. They priced this low end product at $199. Now, I've got both the private and public college versions of the college viability program completion apps retaining at $295. And they offer a more. They offer comparisons for
three years, I believe, from 2020 through 2022. They offer both public and private college virgins. They look at both the bachelor's and master's programs across, I think, 16 iPads program levels. So here's what I'm gonna do. If you want either the public or private college viability app, program completion app, send me a note, drop me an email at garyatcollegeviability. That's one word.
and asking the subject line for the 199 promo. It's all it needs. Send me your email request for the 199 promo. I'll take care of the rest. I'll send you the link and I'll be priced $199 for either the public and or private college version of the app. It has a lot more value than the Chronicle version and I'll price it for the, let's say through at least October 31st. I may be generous and go into November a little bit with that as well.
Gary (07:06.984)
Another chronicle story, a chronicle story that I mentioned in the opening. And it reads, are the white students? And the subheading reads, a chronicle analysis shows their numbers are dropping faster than any other group. Now this is truly new news. And it comes from a story written by Katherine Mangan with help from a colleague on data analytics and graphics by the name of Brian O'Leary on October 10th, was a couple of weeks old. And of course, with all the stories I have.
with almost all the stories. I'll have a link to the story in the show notes. Here's what Katherine Mangan reports. For more than a decade, college officials have watched their incoming classes steadily shrink, nudging them closer and closer to an enrollment cliff that experts say campuses could be tumbling off of. I think one more clip, that's bad writing, in the next year or two. The focus has been, I'm paraphrasing here, the focus has been on college enrollment rates
for students of colors and other ethnicities. But Ms. Mangan goes on, in a twist that's caught even some demographers by surprise, it's the white students. It's the white students colleges have typically relied on to fill their seats whose numbers are plummeting the fastest. White students' numbers are plummeting the fastest. Over the last decade, undergraduate enrollment, Ms. Mangan continues.
and her colleague, Mr. O'Leary, over the last decade, undergraduate enrollment of white students has dropped more than that of any other racial group, according to Federal Data, Chronicle Analysis, and several outside experts. So this is the first story that I've seen about this data observation. I guess I'm not surprised. To be honest, I look at the big picture market and the big picture economic trends. don't really pay attention to the ethnicity.
And if I did, it would be college by college, and that would be a lot of data. And I work hard to stay away from any political content in my work. I know politics is important, I know. But I only focus on the data and its market impact. Others can do the political piece. I wonder how many or if many colleges have already noted in their internal numbers, in their internal data, a decrease in white student enrollment. I've not heard anything at all about that.
Gary (09:34.132)
Now, it can't be good. This can't be a good thing for the higher education sector in general. My best informed guess at this stage, my best informed guess is that the combination of cost and value, what we hear over and over again, is obviously hitting this demographic of white students harder than any of us have seen previously.
College, kind of on the same lines, college for all is bad for boys. College for all is bad for boys. And this is again from Ryan Craig, always good stuff. He wrote this one for Forbes on October 18th. And here's what he talks about. At the top campuses of the University of California, Berkeley, UCLA, San Diego, Davis, Irvine, and Santa Barbara, the gender gap for admitted students.
is now 26 points. 63 % women admitted, 37 % men. That's a big gap. Nationally, the gap for undergraduate enrollment is 16 points, 16%. 58 % women, 42 % for men, and it's the same for degree attainment, Mr. Craig writes in his Forbes article of October 18th. But beyond college undergraduate enrollment and degree attainment numbers, there's more that Mr. Craig talks about. Let me share some of those.
Girls are 14, this goes kind of younger age than college. Girls are 14 % more likely to be school ready. I don't what that means at age five. The GPA gap has the grade point average gap has widened to the point that the average high school grade, the average high school grade for girls is A, while for boys it's B. Girls now account for two thirds of high school students in the top 10%.
of grade point average. Girls are more likely to be taking AP courses, advanced placement courses. Boys are more likely to zigzag, okay, to zigzag through college. I should assume that means changing majors and courses and that kind of stuff. While girls tend to follow a straighter path.
Gary (11:48.694)
Female college students are more than twice as likely to study abroad or sign up for Peace Corps or AmeriCorps kind of organizations. Now, the reporter on this that Craig cites is a Mr. Reeves. He isn't focused on the top 5%. That's not what the story is about. goes on to, Mr. Reeves goes on to note, there's no gender gap at highly selective private colleges where schools handpick their 50-50 classes. I don't doubt that for a second.
At the highest rungs, at these high level classes that are very selective, men appear to be holding their own. But for the other 95%, Mr. Reeves concludes that the gaps at the college level reflect the ones already observed in high school. New York Times columnist David Brooks talks about how the government might do better. So Mr. Brooks, David Brooks from the New York Times suggests that
And he says, strongly believe that any healthy society needs to find ways to reward a variety of abilities. Not just the one our current meritocracy, current college rewards, the ability to please teachers and take tests during adolescence. Mr. Brooks went on, we have to find more ways to reward the abilities.
that don't involve information analysis on a laptop. Brooks is arguing for high school and perhaps middle school pathways that don't run through the college board advanced placement weighted GPA dash standardized dash testing dash common app industrial complex. CAP, college board, ACT, SAT tests that dominate most colleges.
He goes on to say that complex has successfully killed career and technical education, which value skills other than taking tests, writing essays and pleasing teachers. which makes us an outlier internationally since in other developed countries, 40 to 50 percent of high school students are enrolled in vocational education and training. That's not the case in the United States. And you want to read the entire story. The link will be in the show notes.
Gary (14:13.686)
I had to keep it as succinct as possible. It was a long and thorough article. So what does this mean? What does this mean for traditional higher education? It means that the market for learning, which is where the dollars are, will continue to move away, I believe, will continue to move away from the traditional four-year college degrees. Those four-year college degrees, kind of the learn and regurgitate model that Mr. Brooks is kind of talking about. My word is not his.
It is in my mind yet another financial nail, another financial nail in the bank accounts for many traditional, I ain't gonna change kind of colleges. Page three.
Columbia College in Chicago had a huge drop in freshmen enrollment. Where does it go from here? Now, you recall that Columbia College was a frequent flyer earlier this year. They had all sorts of issues with layoffs and cutbacks. The president is leaving or has left. Faculty were in an uproar. Students were in an uproar. And here's what resulted from that. They have 959 new enrolled students for 2024. They must not read the papers.
That's a 40%, 40 % decrease from just a year ago and a 55 % drop from over a decade ago. The school told Crain's Chicago it was the lowest freshman enrollment in the last 15 years. Find the light switch. Somebody at Columbia College in Chicago, find the light switch. You're going to need to flip that sucker sometime soon.
A new kind of storyline, I touch on athletics and college sports on occasion. New Mexico State University wants $137 million from the state to support women's sports. And what they're trying to do is use $137 million endowment and the returns on that endowment to fund the school's 10 women's sports teams. The athletic director, Mario Mochia,
Gary (16:25.738)
says there is just a fear with a school like ours that is really living paycheck to paycheck. Women's sports, Mr. Mokia, I gotta say that again, Mr. Mokia, or Mosia, women's sports might get left behind. We want it to be a little proactive. Kudos for trying to get ahead of things. I have no idea if 137 million endowment is coming from any state government, but here's the concerns. And I have a lot of concerns about the non-power.
4.5 because nobody knows what the Pac-10 or Pac-2 is going to look like. From the non-power 4.5 conference, college, athletic programs in the coming years. Let me give you just two worst case scenarios. This would be for everything but those power four schools. Those power four conferences, schools in those power four conferences. Athletic scholarships go away for some sports. And I wouldn't even begin to guess what sports at this stage.
Now students might still be able to get scholarships. They would be related academics and those kinds of things, not necessarily for sports. You wonder what kind of compensation sports coaches will get. Will they be full time? Will they go part time? That's something to think about. And the other worst case scenario for students is that students will have to engage in a pay to play scenario in some form or fashion. Again, way too early and I'm not smart enough to speculate on what that might look like. I think I've seen others talk about that.
as well. So those are just the worst case scenarios. It's gonna be changes. It's gonna be changes. So if you have a child and they're focusing on a sport, I don't know that matters at this stage, and it's a sport that may not get them or their skill level may not get them into the power 4.5 conferences, just be prepared, be thinking about options because I think that's gonna come into play sooner rather than later. Page four.
Amid declining enrollment, is another kind of St. Louis University story. Amid declining enrollment, Brandeis is in an intensifying budget crunch. Brandeis is in an intensifying budget crunch. The story is by Mike Damiano of the Boston Globe on October 18. In May of this year, the college announced 60 layoffs. The employees affected by the cuts, mostly staff and administrative roles, and the colleges started looking at program cuts.
Gary (18:48.598)
It's already announced some PhD programs are being put on hiatus. I that's just a nice way of saying cut. Brandeis like St. Louis University and probably even more so. Brandeis stands apart in the higher education world with this combination of, and they say intimate, I'll give them that, an intimate liberal arts feel and powerhouse research that produces scientific breakthroughs and wins Nobel prizes. right, you've got to document that stuff and they do. Now in the midst of widespread
widespread financial troubles in higher education and declining enrollment. At Brandeis in particular, this Boston area school finds itself in an intensifying budget crunch and trying to fend off what some fear could be the beginning of a long run decline. Of course, this is from the Boston Globe and Mike Damiano as a reporter. again, this is yet another example, yet another example of a college that won't ever close. Brandeis is not going to close.
but is really having to look at how revenues match expenses probably more closely than they've ever had before. I increasingly believe, especially when I see stories like this, I increasingly believe we are looking at the early stage of a college contraction. We'll call it a college contraction, a higher education contraction, but that's not good alliteration. It won't matter. It won't matter the size of the college, nor its balance sheet and its financial statements. Colleges almost...
almost everywhere, will have a smaller set of offerings across undergraduate, graduate, and even terminal degrees. And that's not a bad thing. That's not a bad thing. Well, it could be for faculty and students. It really could be. We've seen that in the last many months, many years, and it will continue to happen. But it's part and parcel of the same set of market conditions.
that will continue to cause dozens or more of colleges to close.
Gary (20:56.438)
And the last story for this week, before we do the wrap, are colleges really facing an enrollment clip? And this is from the Brookings folks on October 17th. The gentleman who wrote the story is Mr. Dick Starts. I don't know that he's a doctor, so I'm going to call him Mr. Starts. Sorry if I've missed that, my apologies. And there are two parts to the story. The first is the macro generalized data. That's okay. That's not what I do, but that's what most analysts do. And for example, Mr. Starts.
notes that half of the colleges in the United States enroll fewer than 2,200 students and a third of colleges enroll less than 1,000 students. We've seen this kind of numbers before. Some of these places he notes are vulnerable. OK, duh. He also places the fact, he also balances the fact that most closures are at smaller colleges with fewer students. Again, we know that for a fact. And he does note that it is traumatic for those impacted. Well, that's an important qualification.
When you do the macro, you're not going to be able to give anybody a warning that their college is going to close. That's why here at College Viability, I only focus on the data at the college by college level. We want college leaders, faculty, staff, students, families, other stakeholders to know which colleges are doing well and which not so much.
And that's just the difference between what most folks do and what I do. The second part of the story discusses program closures. It discusses it as the real risk for all colleges, public and private. And Mr. Starr's notes, most colleges are at no risk of closing, though some will close. He says, I suspect the real issue is going to be program, program eliminations.
and accompanying reductions in force as some schools downsize or right-size, whatever you want to call it, even as others, smaller number, I think, even as others are growing. He cites examples of program closures and reductions in force at Penn State, West Virginia, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and from my source, St. Louis University. Okay, nice catch, Mr. Starrs. Mr. Starrs is correct. And I have seen many, many more cut back on layoff stories in just these four, and you've probably read about them as well, but...
Gary (23:15.798)
What does this mean? What does this mean? Any kind of business change in a college, MITs, change the font on the business card, whatever the change may be, it's almost always met with protests of varying types by faculty and students. So if there are too many cutbacks, too many layoffs across the higher education industry, is there a tipping point?
for either the industry at large or for individual colleges when colleges can't afford to anything, when colleges can't afford to offer anything close to their traditional set of required courses and their currently large list of majors and minors. And would such a scenario, could such a scenario be a leading factor in more mergers and like I believe more large scale mergers with those 10 or more colleges that come together.
to be able to get the maximum efficiency on both the academic and non-academic operations for their organizations. So again, my timing is good earlier this year. I created and released what I think is the first ever app that lets users compare program completion numbers for more than 3,000 public and private colleges. And as I start to get ready to develop the 2025 versions of the app, it is my plan.
to add user selected market share comparisons. So it's not just a single number. It will be a market share based on what the users select by state or region or individual colleges. And that's what leads me to this week's wrap. And it's been a while since I've talked about this. Why is the focus from the previous story, why is the focus of almost all of these articles?
Gary (25:08.028)
Why is the focus of these news stories on the macro, on the higher education industry at large and not the micro, the individual colleges? And yes, it's important, I know, to look at the big picture, but the big picture is of no help, of no help to students and families trying to choose a college. That's why my college viability apps are so important. They do the micro comparisons, the college by college comparisons.
across dozens of data points like enrollment, graduation rates, financial reports, and programs like we just talked about. And the college viability program completion apps may become even more important to college leaders and faculty and staff and students as each use the data to make the best choices of what to offer if you're in the college or what college to choose if you're a student. And as a sidebar, Matt Hendricks also does this.
with his research, with his prospective, data science.com slash research visualization. If you've not been there, go there, it's free for now. You can join Matt and me live every Tuesday as we do the college financial health show. I also post this to my college viability YouTube channel. We don't do macro. We don't do macro. We only do reporting and analysis of individual colleges. That's what.
helps everybody looking at it college by college, not just the big picture. Hey, it's a wrap at College Viability. Of course, this is Gary Stocker. I'm coming back next Monday and we'll do another podcast episode of this week in College Viability. As always, I'm grateful for you making time to listen to this podcast and I hope to have more good information, news and commentary for you in the coming weeks, months and years.