This Week in College Viability (TWICV) for September 28, 2023

Gary (00:02.906)
It's September 25, 2023, just three short months until Christmas day. And this is this week in college viability. Hi, my name is Gary Stocker. You know, I'm working to be the fiduciary for students and their families and even for faculty and staff. And here's why, because college leaders in my experience and in my research can't be bothered with looking out for students and families and faculty and staff.

as their fiduciaries. So what's a fiduciary? And the simple definition is someone who looks out for the interests of an organization above and beyond what they are paid for. If you followed my stuff, you'll know that I don't blame college presidents for spin. I don't agree with it, but they're really paid to protect the best interests above and beyond what they're paid for of their colleges. But that leaves a monstrous vacuum for everybody else. And that's why we're here.

We're going to share the stories with enthusiasm and energy and many times disbelief will give you some things to think about. But it's another edition of this week in college viability. And I want to start off with a college warning. And I think I'm going to add this feature. And it's a feature where, where the this week in college viability podcast, when news is published, that what that confirms what we see in our college viability app, and this one comes from Columbia college in Chicago.

And the headline reads, faculty, staff, leaders push for more involvement in helping the college confront its financial problems. Here's the warning. If you're considering Columbia College in Chicago, don't. They have problems, they have finances and they haven't figured it out yet. And that's essentially what this story talks about. And as always, I'll have a link to the story in the show notes. And I wanna look then, I'll talk about something else that I'm doing. And I have a series of podcasts and just started recently.

one that's called Uh-Oh! College, as in Uh-Oh! And what I'm attempting to do is design some content for students and their families that helps look at the spin, looks at the data, look at the logic or illogic that colleges try and spin on them daily. And the one I'm gonna be doing when I do the next Uh-Oh! College episode is something called financial exigency. And for those of you listening, most of you know what it is, it's kind of...

Gary (02:30.182)
If we don't find more money, we're not going to make it. We're not going to survive. And this headline comes from Dickinson State faculty preserving, pleading to preserve their academic programs and their jobs. And again, I'll provide the link, but they have a financial exigency. They're not telling you that. But the fact that they are pleading to preserve academic programs suggests if they're not there, they're awfully close.

And then the category of let me stick my chest out and beat it. There's a President's Corner blog from Bridgewater College, and it reads that Bridgewater College wants to change the narrative on higher ed. Well, don't we all. This was written by Alcino D'Onedel from University Business and was published on September 15th, and Bridgewater College wants to change things. God bless them. Go get them.

They've got some positive things. Their graduation rates are OK. They're around 50% at four years and around 70% at six years. Not great, but not bad. Their tuition and fees are down about $4 million. And again, when I cite these numbers, for this year, it's always from 2014 through 2021. So their tuition and fees are down $4 million. Never good to be down that much over eight years. And something called their unfunded institutional grants are up $6 million. If you've heard me talk about that before.

It means they're giving away the store to get students to enroll. Their admission yield, and I call this a popularity indicator, is flat, so it hasn't gone up, hasn't gone down. They have grown. This is something I don't see very often, but to the credit of Bridgewater College, they have grown their funded endowments about two million over the last eight years. You don't see that very often. But even in light of that, their full time enrollment equivalent is down 300. Their liabilities are up 18 million.

and the total assets up about three times, a little bit more than three times that. I'm okay with the liabilities piece. I sometimes worry how assets are counted, but nonetheless, the president at Bridgewater College wants to change the narrative. Yeah, at best he has an organization that's not gonna close tomorrow, but they have issues like most do. And if I had music, and I may do that someday, I would go dot to dot to dot to dot.

Gary (04:49.386)
An update on the private college garage and rummage sale. It continues at Iowa Wesleyan University and the headline reads, items at Iowa Wesleyan campus to be freely up for grabs at community days and that's happening sometime soon. And the story reads, this is from Mount Pleasant, Iowa, the former home of Iowa Wesleyan University. Items at the Iowa Wesleyan campus will be up for grabs, the story reports.

during four community days over the next several weeks. In a press release, the Mount Pleasant Area Chamber Alliance said the community days are open to the public with items being free to take on a first come, first serve basis. However, people will not be able to put items on hold. The only other rules, and this is entertaining, the only other rules are that people are not allowed to take items attached to the walls and no power tools are allowed to be brought in.

people will be allowed to bring in a small wagon to carry items out. And I guess I wrap this story up with how many other times are we going to see more versions of the college garage and rummage sale? The iOSN one is particularly both distressing and entertaining at the same time, but that's where we are. And I've mentioned this before. We are in an era where colleges will close and they will be opening up the doors and say, take it, because we can't use it anymore.

and student loans. And I haven't talked much about this because it's been going on and on and on. But student loan payments will resume shortly. And this is a story from the morning news roundup from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. This is on Wednesday, September 27. And it really talks about after 42 months and nine extensions, the pause on student loan payments is lifting. And the story cites some students who are gonna be challenged and God bless them. I understand the challenges you face.

coming out of college and the debts that you have. I had them as many, many listeners have as well. And again, the story link will be in the podcast notes, the show notes. But here's my question. So this isn't the only story that will be a woe is me repayment story about students either still in college or having graduated from college recently. And how is this going to impact others?

Gary (07:11.79)
considering that college education. Now, if you remember back to Economics 101, there's something called marginal analysis. It's an examination of the additional benefits of an activity going to college, compared to the additional costs incurred by that same activity. And you and I make marginal analysis on everything. Where I go out and get a bite to eat, where I go for my next sandwich, where I buy my next car. We all make those decisions based on that marginal analysis of what

the additional benefit is. And keep in mind that for many, if not most, smaller colleges, a handful or two of students make the difference between being in the black, positive revenue, and being in the red. And if there are too many of these woe is me stories, legitimate though they may be, are out there, we have to wonder how that's going to impact those students making that marginal analysis, they're not calling it that, and decide not to go to college because of that concern.

about the cost. And as always, questions, comments, concerns, suggestions, send them to me, gary at college viability, that's one word, gary at collegeviability.com. Dr. Ross, next story is Dr. Brian Rosenberg is the president emeritus of Macalester College, that's in Minnesota. And his story in the Chronicle for Higher Education is entitled, Higher Ed's Ruinous Resistance to Change. And I'm gonna read a little bit of what Dr. Rosenberg talks about.

He had a conversation with the president and director of scholarship and teaching. I think I've got that wrong, the director of scholarship and teaching. And the two of them wanted to talk about teaching versus research and what got the most for students. And again, the link will be in the show notes. I'll give you the reader's digest version. The discussion with faculty went nowhere and went fast. And the moral of the story is we've seen this in many instances.

where research versus teaching is nuked by college faculty. Apparently, college faculty value research in everything they do, except for what they do, which is teach. And I'm gonna read from the article. This is again from Dr. Brian Rosenberg, the President Emeritus at McAllister College in Minnesota. The resistance, he says, to anything like serious change is profound. And by change, he says, I don't mean the addition of yet another program.

Gary (09:39.146)
or the alteration of a graduation requirement, but something that is transformational and affects the way we do our work on a deep level. For years, he writes, I have pondered the question of why an industry so widely populated by people who consider themselves politically liberal is so deeply conservative when it comes to its own work. Why scholars whose disciplines are constantly evolving,

are so resistant to institutional evolution, why colleges and universities that almost always speak in their mission statements about the transformative power of education find it so difficult to transform themselves, and why virtually no fundamental practice within higher education, calendar, tenure process, pedagogy, grading has changed in meaningful ways for decades, if not centuries.

And he concludes with, when the service you provide costs more than people are willing to pay for it, when you are unable to lower that cost of service, and when the number of your potential customers is shrinking, the demographic cliff, you have what one might describe as an unsustainable financial model. I think after reading this, I'm going to invite Dr. Rosenberg to my house for Thanksgiving. And that invitation list is growing.

every day. Let's go to Australia. And this is a story by Stephen Schwartz. And I don't know if he's an Australian native or not. I can't tell. And he wrote this for the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. And this was on September 27th. And again, I'm going to read because there's value in using the words of the reporters and I'm giving them credit. Mr. Schwartz writes in a daring display of its unshakable commitment.

In a daring display of its unshakable commitment to the academic success of its constituents, the federal government of Australia has introduced legislation that could revolutionize or perhaps obliterate the way we understand the concept of failure. Mr. Schwartz writes, call it, and this is tongue in cheek for sure, call it the no student left behind dash, especially if they failed act. The no student left behind, especially if they failed act.

Gary (12:07.038)
It's an ambitious move, he writes, guaranteeing the total eradication of that ghastly F-word from the Australian education system failure.

And the details behind that, he writes, and I'll continue reading, the Australian government is mandating that university students who score less than 50, that's five zero percent in their exams, will be entitled to a slew of educational lifesavers. University funded tutoring, counseling, examination, do-overs, special exams and extended deadlines are all on the table. None of those have been enacted yet. And here he's again, with tongue deeply embedded in cheek.

with these bountiful resources at their disposal, no student will ever face the sting of failure again. Now, the story was prefaced by the famous Michael Jordan story about how many game winning shots he missed. I think the number was something like 300, but how all of those failures helped him to become ridiculously successful. And it's interesting that the 50% grade is the threshold that the Australian government uses to define either success or failure.

And you're not going to be surprised at this. If computers worked only 50% of the time, if surgeons fixed only every other patient successfully, if we had 100 cars, 100 carts, and only 50 ran smoothly, you and I are not going to be happy. But Schwartz concludes, and I quote, but this trend is not just in Australia. The philosophy of keeping students happy by eliminating failure is also spreading across the United States.

Grade inflation here has become more and more pronounced with the A grades, letter A grades, now the average in many schools and grades of DNF almost non-existent. And he concludes again, this extraordinary development will have vast repercussions for education, for success and for the very nature of our universities. Of course, he finally writes, we want our students to succeed, but passing every student will ensure just the opposite.

Gary (14:16.566)
by preventing students from experiencing failure will keep them from gaining the self-confidence that comes from overcoming it. And again, questions, comments, concerns, challenges, send them to me, gary at collegeviability. That's one word, gary at collegeviability.com. We have a personnel announcement. Meg Rickman, R-I-C-H-T-M-A-N, was recently named I think this past week, the Vice President of Enrollment, Marketing and Communications at Milliken University, and that's in Decatur, Illinois.

This looks like it's a press release from the Decatur, Illinois Tribune. And first of all, congratulations to Meg Rickman on the new gig. As the announcement reports, she has substantial skills and experience in college admissions and we wish her nothing but the best here at College Viability. But let's go to the big H, the big H, however, let's look at this pronouncement a little closer.

Meg Rickman last served as the vice president for strategic initiatives at Iowa Wesleyan University where she also held the position of vice president of development and alumni relations. And for those of you with any memory at all, Iowa Wesleyan University closed this past spring. And like I always do, I'm going to the data. Interestingly, and I've shared this before, Iowa Wesleyan actually increased its enrollment.

over the last eight years by some 300 students, but they did so by giving away the store. Their unfunded institutional grants, you and I know them as discounts, also called merit aid, also called scholarships, doubled from five million to 10 million. Their average four-year graduation, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, was 20%. On average, over four years or six years at about 25%.

Gary (16:14.922)
Why do we send our students to a college that can't even graduate a quarter of their students after six years?

Best wishes to Ms. Rickman, but I wonder how successful that's going to be. Kansas. Let's go from Illinois to Kansas, and Kansas public university and college enrollment grows despite a 12.5% plunge at a place called Emporia State, which is in the middle of nowhere Kansas. And this was written by Tim Carpenter at the kansasreflector.com. I don't know that one. Again, on September 27th. And

Again, I'm going to have to ask my wife for a bigger Thanksgiving table because I want to invite Dr. Ken Hush, president, to my Thanksgiving dinner. Here's why. Dr. Hush, president of Emporia State University, of whom the enrollment has plunged 12.5% in the last year. The rest of the story, Dr. Hush adds, is what it costs to operate the university. Enrollment numbers, he adds, hold little significance unless they are compared to expenses.

This means, he says profoundly, that's my words, not his, this means enrollment isn't necessarily equal to success.

Okay, Dr. Hush, here's what I'm going to do. After I record this audio podcast, I've already pulled up all of the regional publics and a couple of the main publics in Kansas. I'm going to bring up the Public College Viability app. We're going to go line item by line item. Listeners, don't hold your breath. Dr. Hush, don't hold your breath. It's not going to be pretty.

Gary (18:00.082)
And what's really become, as I looked at the data, and I'll show you this in the YouTube version of the report, is Emporia State has kind of become the West Virginia University of Kansas. Their long-term debt doubled from 2014 to 2021 and went from about $20 million to about $40 million. And I'm guessing they were building stuff in the hopes that folks would come, build it, and they will come, did not happen.

And again, to address the spin that colleges engage in all the time, Karen Goose, G-O-O-S, who is the vice provost for enrollment management at Kansas State, not doing particularly well with enrollment themselves, but they had an increase. And she says, Ms. Goose, G-O-O-S, says, this year's increases are a direct result of our commitment to the strategic enrollment plan. The past two years, she says, have...

seeing tremendous progress in first-time freshmen and transfer student classes, which sets Kansas State on a path to continued growth to the data we go. And they're worse off in 2023 than they were in 2014. I'll show you that on the video version of this podcast.

Jeez.

Gary (19:24.394)
And let's wrap up with a story coming out of Miami University. And this is Miami University of Ohio. And the headline reads, this is by Emma Pettit. This headline reads, this is from the Chronicle as well, citing unprecedented financial challenges. Miami University tells low enrollment majors to change. All right, nothing wrong with that. And the article lists 17 low enrollment programs at Miami University of Ohio. And again, I'll provide the link to the story in the show notes.

But here's the quote from the Office of the Provost. I presume this comes from the provost, but they're fudging that a little bit. The Office of the Provost at Miami, Ohio University, Miami University of Ohio, it's not professor's fault that the university can no longer afford to support its current lineup of academic programs. The Office of the Provost wrote in a document that was shared with effective department chairs earlier this semester. Rather, the Office of Provost writes,

the unprecedented fiscal, societal, and political challenges that Miami faces are part of a larger, troubling higher education landscape. Well, yes, it is. But if the market doesn't need those courses and the students at Miami University of Ohio are telling them that with their feet, don't the faculty have some culpability for teaching, if not irrelevant context?

irrelevant content, at least not market-needed content. And I know somebody's going to jump on the words I use, irrelevant content. But if students don't want the content.

How else would you describe it? And from the story, 72% of Miami students are enrolled in just 30 majors. They have more than 200.

Gary (21:16.21)
And student demand, this is from Elizabeth Reitz-Mullen-Ex, the actual provost, all right, I'm actually gonna quote, student demand is trending toward disciplines that are perceived to lead to better jobs, she said, such as business and engineering, nothing new about that. So Miami of Ohio has about 20,000 students. So do the math, 20,000 students by 72% of 200 majors and about 460 some odd students per popular major.

That leaves about 170 minor majors, if I'm making up that word. So doing a math, 6,000 students left over, 20,000 times 30%.

Gary (21:57.27)
35 students on average during the math are taking majors in the other 170 some odd programs. But that's not the secret. It's 35 over four years. 35 divided by four, I got my calculator out. That's nine students per year on average taking most majors at Miami University of Ohio.

That's a triple G shift, nothing else. And I get the liberal arts studies argument. I even agree that a well-rounded education adds value. The big H, the big H, however, the market is speaking to the good folks and faculty at Miami University of Ohio, the market is speaking. And there's a story, there's a sign in the Rocky Mountains here in the United States. It's deep into the mountains and the sign reads, the mountain doesn't care. And it addresses those who are brave enough and skilled enough.

to go into the tough spots of the mountain that the mountain is not forgiving. And I'm gonna do a slight stretch of that. I'm gonna make the case that University of Ohio, Miami, sorry, University of Miami in Ohio, the market doesn't care what these faculty members say or want. Markets everywhere are driven by products and services. Why should higher education be an exception? Jeeesh.

Questions, of course, comments, concerns, challenges to Gary at College Viability. That's one word, garyatcollegeviability.com. That concludes this episode of this week in College Viability. We'll talk next time.