This Week In College Viability (TWICV) for October 23, 2023

Gary (00:02.87)
Welcome back to another episode of This Week in College Viability. I'm Gary Stocker, of course, with College Viability. Hey, this is a retake from back in the days when the dog ate my homework. The podcast software ate my podcast from last week. So this episode is with content from October 23rd. But it was good stuff. So I'm just going to record the thing again and be careful with which buttons I push as I edit it. So here's on the list for colleges to cover today.

Lesley University, the professors are angry. Virginia universities wanna let everybody in. Clarkson University is cutting stuff. Gonna get some student reactions to the closing of the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Washington County. Avila wants to borrow from their piggy bank. Illinois Wesleyan University, I don't know what they mean by what they're saying. And finally, Birmingham Southern is mad because the state treasurer won't let them borrow money.

Lesley University, the professors protest mass layoff of liberal arts faculty. We've seen these stories before. This is from Bailey Allen in the Boston Globe from earlier this month. Here's what Mr. Allen writes, maybe Ms. Allen, after the mass layoff of at least 30 faculty members and removal of some academic programs earlier this month, Lesley University students, alumni, faculty, and staff protested the university's cost-cutting decisions at the school's

Cambridge campus on Saturday morning. Of course they did. Of course they protested. I've shared many times over the past year or so that any change or even proposed change in a college's business model will almost automatically be followed by faculty and student, and in some cases, community protests. This is the United States. This is what we do. We protest stuff we don't like, and nothing wrong with that. Sometimes it works.

Many times in my observation, it does not. And in this case at Lesley and other colleges like that, I don't know that the protest is going to do much more good other than to get website listings and social media activity. There was a particular student who name is Allison Frisella, and she was a graduate it looks like of the AXT, the CUT political science program. She helped organize the protest outside of University Hall. Don't we all have one of those?

Gary (02:28.682)
I came out, she says, because all of the faculty in our school, I'm sorry, all the faculty in our social sciences department were cut. And the social sciences department, she adds, is very near and dear to my heart. I would not, she concludes, I would not be the person I am today without the professors that were cut. Well, Allison, a couple things. For the next college you look at, you might want to check on their financial health and viability before you go there.

And when you do, Allison, if and when you do choose a new home, I got to think it'll be quite reasonable to find additional talented and caring people who can help mold you into the type of person that you want to be. It's not just Leslie. It's many, many places. Leslie is just on the list of folks who haven't managed their organization well. And you're kind of paying for the consequences.

Well, in Virginia, one of the things they want to do to get more students in is to make it easier to get in. So the headline reads Virginia universities increasingly eyeing guaranteed admissions. And this is from Nathaniel Klein at the Virginia Mercury. And she writes enrollment at Virginia's public colleges has declined lots. I'll spare you the numbers.

And here's what they want to do. They want to let more folks in the university. So that means the Virginia universities want to admit anybody and everybody in essence. And I don't know that this changes anything. Maybe the motto for the Virginia university should be something along the lines of have brain cells, limited though they may be, will admit. Or even better, maybe their new motto should be breathe oxygen.

and will admit. And while this certainly might increase enrollment, it's also almost equally as certainly to decrease graduation rates. Because if you bring in more and more unqualified, unprepared, maybe even incapable students to Virginia universities, those are the ones that will end up with Pell Grants, nothing wrong with that, and some debt. Something is wrong with that. And no degree, something is really wrong with that. And that's what got us.

Gary (04:48.99)
into this problem in the first place. And we've seen this story before, but Nicholas, I'm sorry, Kindle Teets and Nicholas Lanham at Fox News have a story about US companies increasingly eliminate college degrees as a requirement amid out of control school costs. All right, we've seen this kind of story before and it talks about companies like Walmart and IBM and the big consulting firm Accenture, Bank of America and Google.

and they're all reducing the number of jobs that require college degrees. Well, here's the interesting point that Kendall Teats and Nicholas Lanham make. They say the most aggravating part is that everyone's paying attention to the poor students who are billed and have to pay these debts, have to pay these costs, but no one is seriously, I'm going to add that, no one is blaming universities themselves

for teaching worthless things and not providing, or not providing the sort of career advice that they should. Now this is from Kendall Teets and Nicholas Lanham at Fox News. And I've talked before about how embedded the historical culture is for higher education in the United States. It is generally, and I think accurately, assume that college is a good thing, and it is. These kinds of stories as they increase throughout the media.

Gary (06:15.699)
are in fact starting to change the culture, that higher education is the only way for a financially rewarding and successful career. This kind of story is only going to contribute to more and more potential college students not choosing the higher education route, the traditional higher education route. And of course, with fewer students looking at college, more and more colleges will...

either be forced into more financially bad decisions associated with stuff like tuition and discounts and trying to add new programs that aren't going to generate materially significant new revenue. And I've shared this before. And again, what I've shared before, I think we're headed towards still more closures before we start to see some consolidation of any serious nature in higher education. And goodness gracious, another university looks to cut faculty and programs. This is Clarkson University.

in Northern New York State. This is from Syracuse.com. Mid-October, Jeff Herbert is the reporter for this story. And Herbert reports that documents obtained by North County, I guess that's the publication, by North County this week show the Northern New York School, this is Clarkson, has developed a prototype, okay? Has developed a prototype that will likely sunset or downsize humanities programs like political science, literature, American studies.

interdisciplinary liberal arts, let me try that again, interdisciplinary liberal arts, communication and history. Now note those are all relatively subjective topics. We're gonna have a story a little bit later on in this podcast that adds math and finance to that list. We'll talk about that later on. The story goes on to write, at some point, at some time, Clarkson, it says, will refocus its education's offerings on STEM. We know what that is.

We know that some changes will be necessary. Clarkson's vice president for external relations, Kelsey Chisholm, boy, we all need a vice president for external relations, told the Syracuse.com publication. We expect decisions to be made by the end of the semester. On and on and on it goes. Governor Kathy Hochul of New York State, Hochul? I have to get the pronunciation on that. Also announced free applications this month for 130 colleges and universities in New York State.

Gary (08:38.99)
to help boost enrollment higher education. And I don't know which cart came before which horse, Virginia or New York State. Enrolling more students if they're not ready is not a solution. I'm going with a double jeesh on this. It's not like applications need to increase. The common app makes it easy to send applications already. And then an interesting article from the Chronicle. And this is from Dina Davis. And I've had quite a few people send me this link. This was from October 18th.

And this is written from the perspective of a board member who was around when Marlboro College closed back in 2020. And the headline reads, when your college is staring death in the face, I believe we're talking financial death here, what are a trustee's duties to an institution on the brink of disaster?

And the person cited here, and I don't see the name in front of me, says trustees must figure out if they are acting in the best interest of students.

or their institutions, if they are letting personal feelings unduly influence their decisions, and if they'll know if and when it's time to let the institution die. Now, this is an excellent article written in association with the Marlboro College closing. And one of the most important questions that it gives us is, was the Board of Trustees at Marlboro College loyal to their stakeholders?

Now you've heard me on regular occasion, note that college leaders, presidents, CFOs, boards have that fiduciary responsibility to the college. They have to look out for the best interests of the college, no problems, no issues, no question. Absolutely, absolutely. The way they do it and the timing with which they do it concerns me, but they have that responsibility. I'll say again, I'm sure I'll say in the future, there is no equivalent, there is no real fiduciary.

Gary (10:43.062)
for students and their families or faculty or staff or even communities. And one of the things we try and do here at College Viability is to serve in that role as kind of an informal fiduciary for those parties. We do that, of course, by sharing the data and offering our different perspective. When colleges spin average, when they, when colleges spin average to poor enrollment numbers, and when they tout how unique they are and when they're not unique at all, and they offer

Degrees that are as common of a commodity as you can find anywhere, anytime, any place. And this is where the big challenge is for higher education. These colleges make difficult choices about what students to admit. Are they prepared is one of the big questions. The students make a decision in many cases about whether they want to invest a sizable amount of money to earn a degree.

And as we all know, some degrees provide more income earning opportunities than others. And that choice of degree is yet another decision so many have to make. And like always, I'll make sure the link to this article is in the show notes. To the students we go. And it was about two weeks ago now that the University of Wisconsin system, public system, announced some closures. And this is a story from Stephanie Rodriguez from CBS 58.

WDJTV, I believe that's in Milwaukee, but I'm not sure. I'm a little frustrated, starts the headline quote. University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, I believe, Washington County student reacts to branch campus closing. Now, Wisconsin, what are we going to do with you? On the public side, there is trauma. On the private side, there is trauma. Onto the story. University of Wisconsin systems president Jay Rothman.

announced a bunch of changes, including the closure of UW-Milwaukee, Washington County, and a couple others, one of which will end in-person instruction. And here's a quote from Sukiana Gilmeister.

Gary (12:46.846)
And Ms. Gilmeister was a student, she's a nursing student at UW-Milwaukee. The professors didn't know about the closure. She said, we told our professor at the end of the class and he was shocked. Gilmeister, that nursing student tells CBS 58 she got an email explaining that the campus would close by June of 2024 during the middle of her class. Gilmeister said she already knew she would have to transfer to another campus to finish.

her nursing degree eventually, but was not prepared for it to happen so soon as she just started a month ago. Folks, folks, the leadership throughout the University of Wisconsin system had to know years ago where this trend was heading. How can this continue to happen? But Gilmeister goes on to say they were very clear the leadership, the colleges, were very clear about providing

us help with figuring the process out. They're not just hanging us out to dry or anything like that. He said, it must have been a male. Well, all right, they're not hanging you out on day one. I'll give them that. That's a nice day one sentiment to offer. But how realistic is it that these many closing colleges like University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and many others will be financially capable of providing that support, especially, especially

for the students who need a longer period of time to decide what to do. And the same story, different take from the, from University of Business, I don't have the reporter's name here, WPR was a reporting agency. UW-Platteville, another Wisconsin college in Richland, had already ended in-person classes in July from hosting over 500 students in 2015, the school's most recent enrollment figures

showed an estimated 64 students last fall. Goodness gracious. I'm not sure I can go triple-jish on this, but that's easily a double-jish. Wasn't there some point a long time ago when the actual data between 500 and 64 caught someone's attention before now? Jish. And here's my plug. If you haven't purchased...

Gary (15:09.402)
One of the special versions of the college viability app for families or for faculty and staff due so soon, got some discounted rates out there. There'll be a link in the show notes because we're at the end of a data year and I'll have a 2020 for a version in a couple of months. It provides you the data that lets you look back eight years to see what the trends are. Are they positive trends in enrollment? Are they positive trends in tuition fee revenue? Are they negative trends in both of those? And it looks at graduation rates, both four and six year graduation rates and other factors.

that at least give you as consumers, as faculty and staff, as community stakeholders, information to act now and not wait for these conflicted college leaders to shock you one day in the future.

Avila University is over in the western side of Missouri, in the Kansas City region, and a judge reads the headline. This is from Maria Benevento from the Kansas City Beacon in mid-October. Judge approves Avila University's petition to override donor restrictions, and this is associated with their endowment. Now you don't see stories about colleges borrowing against their endowment very often. And so this is a big deal that somehow this got out.

Avila University had to go through a legal process through the state of Missouri's attorney general and a brief legal hearing as the story shows. And here's why it's a big deal. Because remember, endowments are intended to provide for keeping a college around into perpetuity. Now I've seen this quietly done at other colleges and have heard about others, many others really.

dipping in the endowment piggy bank when cash from operations wasn't sufficient. So this is a trend. This is not an isolated event. But here's the shocking part from Avila University. The story reads they borrowed $6.4 million, I think over the next two fiscal years. Their endowment, if you look at the data from the college viability app in 2021 was 18 million. Do the math. And so Avila University just borrowed about 30% of their endowment.

Gary (17:19.19)
keep the lights on to meet payroll. Now those are my words, not theirs, but that's effectively what's going on. Yes, they're gonna say they're investing in new programs and new marketing, I understand that.

It's just a transfer of cash from one account to the other. They need this fund to make payroll. It's my contention. They need these funds to make payroll, keep the lights on and associated things with running, basically running a college. And even if we look at the data at Avila, since that's the one in the story, the enrollment's down 400 over the last eight years. The four and six year graduation rates are a pathetic 29 and 39% respectively. Tuition revenue's down almost 6 million.

Retention is a sad 66%. Graduate student enrollment is down over 150 students. Expenses are down. And so it suggests the university is struggling to find enough resources for a quality education. And the popularity indicator, that's my term, IPEDS calls it the admission yield is down seven points. And that just suggests that students accepted by Avila University are finding other places they like better. And like many

If not most, yeah. Like many, if not most struggling private colleges, Avila University is clearly bringing too many students without the skills to succeed in college. I would argue leaving those students with debt and an inability to easily get out of that debt. And the patterns, the patterns are all too obvious. The financial profile is similar to others who have ultimately decided to close their doors.

This college needs to find a consolidation partner yesterday or be honest with its students and families and faculty and staff and community and encourage them to look elsewhere for their careers and college degrees.

Gary (19:15.986)
and the talented Brian Bustead has a story out. Higher Ed has now more detractors than promoters. And the essence of this story, I'll have the link in the show notes, is that there are now more folks who, how do I put this? More folks who...

don't like colleges and the college degree process than do. And there's a lot more data behind it. I'm just trying to summarize it. But the critical point that I do want to share is we're approaching a point, this is from Brian Bastid, Always Writing Good Stuff. We're always, we're looking at a point where, I think it was in 2021, I'm not sure that year, where the United States graduated folks, about two million folks with bachelor's degrees. And in that same time period,

We produce nearly as many people with some college, but no degree about 1.4 million. So 1.4 with some college, no degree, and 2 million with a degree. Now, Bastid uses the word oof. Of course, we use different versions of geesh here. And why is this important? That we're almost, we almost have as many without a degree. It's just one more thing as Forrest Gump would say. I have talked and written.

about the economic concept of something called marginal analysis. Consumers make decisions, you and I make decisions on everything based on decisions that are on the margin. You know, simple things like wrong color, wrong size, bad location, too expensive and on and on the list goes. And here's the point for college education. And I've shared this before, you know, I'll share it again. There is a tipping point somewhere.

There's a tipping point somewhere when the cultural and economic decision to go to college swings in mass from go to don't go. Not good. Illinois Westland, this is from WGLTV. I'm sorry, WGLT, I believe that's radio, is Charlie Schlinker. And this is in central Illinois, where Illinois Westland is, and they saw a 16% increase.

Gary (21:27.362)
to start to go, well, that's great, but the reporter wasn't skilled enough to say compared to what year. If it's a post pandemic year, you've heard me talk about that before. Boy, I hope it's up. So to Charlie Schlinker, Charlie, if it could kind of write better for us and give us some base of reference on that. And then Casey Evans at Iowa, excuse me, Illinois Wesleyan. She's the associate vice president for enrollment. Said that the total enrollment is up 3%. I keep in mind total enrollment is not what I use.

You take 15 credits in a semester and I take three, we're counted the same. I use something called FTE enrollment and I can explain that another day. So here's what really got me with Casey Evans, the Associate Vice President for enrollment. She said, on a longer term scale, we're definitely seeing things move in a positive direction. How she comes up with that debt, I have no idea. And everything she continues indicates that will continue.

This is what really gets me. A lot of that is what we hear from students once they are here, said Evans, what in the world does that mean? Have I used a double G shit in this episode? If not, let's throw it out there now. And then from a more objective perspective, in the past, this is from Charlie Schlenker at WGLT, in the past, Illinois Wesleyan officials have said they need about 2,000 students enrolled for institutional stability, and they are about 500 below that, something like that.

Evans, Casey Evans, the associate vice president for enrollment, said, not anymore. Listen closely, at this time in our history, we are not super specific on what a set target is. So give the folks at Illinois Wesleyan a dart board. I guess that will work. I think she says it's more about who is the right fit, the right fit student at the right time. Goodness gracious. I am stunned at how poorly this woman expresses herself.

And are we filling the programs that we have here and making sure we're supporting the offerings that we have? That does make sense. So double-jish. And that's why I'm here. I mean, I'll point out this kind of silliness. You can make whatever decisions that you want. And let me rest in, don't get me wrong. They've got strong four and six-year graduation rates. I look at 2021 data, their four-year graduation rate was 76%, exceptional. Their six-year graduation rate was 81%.

Gary (23:55.362)
They have been ratcheting up the amount of discounts they give. So I'm almost positive that's a big part of their financial challenge. But what does it mean when a college that clearly does a good job graduating folks still can't get them in the door paying sufficient tuition to make the organization financially viable? And again, like I said, I think it was last week about Webster University. Webster, and in this case, Elroy Wesleyan are not the only ones, not the only ones at all. This is a pattern.

too many places. It is a supply and demand issue. There are too many college seats, too many colleges, and not enough college behinds to fill them. And let's wrap up with the sad state affairs at Birmingham Southern, and Birmingham Alabama of course. Birmingham Southern College denied the state loan. Now the college is suing the state to fend off a possible closure. Now you recall that back in the spring

Birmingham Southern was in the news because they were about to close, and they were successfully able to get a bill passed in the Alabama legislature to provide $30 million to a college that met a set of specs. And it was clearly designed for Birmingham Southern without using Birmingham Southern's name. Well, what has happened in the interim is Alabama treasurer, Young Boozer III, and Young is the first name, Young Boozer III has effectively stalled the process to the point where now the good folks at Birmingham Southern are angry.

maybe justifiably. And the issue is now Birmingham Southern, long, what do they call it, pass to the end zone, hail Mary kind of pass, is not working and they're upset. But the story goes beyond that. The story is why aren't they in the position where they're desperate for public funds for a private organization? And it's not just Birmingham Southern.

They're the ones that we can watch in the news. They're the ones that we can offer guidance to through this podcast and other sources.

Gary (26:01.162)
And so there's a college here, there's a college there, and we have a pattern. Don't look at predictions. Those are not much more than educated guesses. If you're Illinois Western, you have a dart board for that. Look at the stories. Look at the stories I share. Look at the stories others share. Look at the data. If you can find a way to grab a copy of the college viability app that's appropriate for you, look at the patterns. Something.

is happening, it has been happening, and it ain't good, and I use ain't on purpose. And as you know, I'll continue to follow these stories and more in future episodes of This Week in College Viability. My name is Gary Stocker. We'll chat soon.