This Week In College Viability (TWICV) for July 28, 2025

Gary (00:02.126)
It is summertime. It is hot summertime and it's July 28th, 2025. Hi everybody, Gary Stocker back with this week in college viability podcast. Let's start off this week's podcast with the continuing observation that I'm not seeing any of the summertime positive college enrollment announcements that I have seen in previous years. You may recall in years gone by, would note.

the positive announcement. Sometimes I would ridicule them along with the observation that many colleges that know news about enrollment growth was bad news. And so far this summer, I should have seen some positive enrollment news and I've missed it. If out there, I've missed it. But I'm worried that there's little to be happy about in terms of enrollment numbers for the fall of 2025 for a number.

of reasons with that in mind, what do we have on the show today? Even more layoffs and program cutbacks notices, some of those from big colleges across the country. And we have a college president who must be dizzy, must be dizzy with the spin she is trying to impart on a very difficult financial situation at her college. And I've got a story about technical and trade schools and they're not sitting

sitting by idly waiting for students. They are marketing to them aggressively. And I have a story and a point to make on that. And Inside Higher Education had a story about college business officers in their annual survey. IHE had a story about college business officers. And folks are still a generally delusional group. This is my observation from the Inside Higher Education story. I'll have some details on that. And...

It's been a while, but I have another college ambulance chaser story. Chaser story from Michigan. Layoffs and cutbacks. Accreditation agency. Flags Wheeling University for financial concerns. This is Chris Schultz on West Virginia Public Broadcasting on July 17th. And Wheeling University has had issues before. Their accreditor is saying, be careful. There are concerns there. With the University of New Orleans.

Gary (02:27.006)
and the massive enrollment declines they are looking at. Officials plan to cut courses and adjunct professors. I've had stories by Marie Fazio previously from NOLA.com and here's what the story reads from Ms. Fazio. Expressing grave concerns about a steep enrollment decline, University of New Orleans leaders said Thursday they will slash the number of adjunct faculty members and eliminate some courses with weeks, just weeks.

to go before the fall term begins. As of mid-July, the story reads, enrollment was down to about 4,000, over 4,000 students, some 2,000 fewer, 2,000 fewer than last fall. This is from officials at the University of New Orleans in an email to faculty explaining the latest cuts as this university, one of many,

Slashes funding for adjunct faculty full-time professors are being told this is not gonna go over well full-time professors are being told to take on more classes Take on more classes for full-time professors and warned that under enrolled courses could be cut Entirely and we have seen this so many times in the last many months And the story goes on to say the cuts amount to large-scale firings. All right. I've not heard that description before

Large-scale firings of adjunct professors, and this is from the United Campus Workers, and that's the union that represents the University of New Orleans faculty, staff, and student workers. And they finally conclude with just four weeks, just four weeks before the fall semester begins, the changes will almost certainly cause last minute class cancellations, overcrowded classrooms, and the loss

of some of our campus communities, most beloved teachers and workers, the union said, sad of course for those that are going to lose their positions, lose their jobs, lose the income associated with that. It's just yet another story in a long, long line of stories about the financial challenges throughout the higher education industry. Duke.

Gary (04:48.81)
Big time basketball, power of horror. Duke announces layoffs amid federal funding uncertainty. I've had stories like this before. Chase Pellegrini to power on July 25th from Indie Week. Duke University announced that nearly 600 employees had taken buyouts, so voluntary buyouts. But still, Duke says they need to cut more jobs. And in a university-wide message on Friday, Chase Pellegrini to Paul writes,

Officials warn that involuntary staff reductions, commonly called layoffs, thank you, are coming next month. Page two, you know when I see spin, I see spin. And this is a story from WKRG TV on July 25th. Akivia McFarland and Ms. McFarland, I am sorry, but you're part of the group, part of the team, part of the club now.

who is engaging in higher education regurgitation reporting. You are just throwing out what the college shares with you without any substantive critical analysis.

Gary (05:58.36)
President at Spring Hill College, Dr. Mary Van Brunch, was in this story, in my mind, was exuding a level of spin that I haven't seen for quite a while. Her everything will be fine approach is not even close to being consistent with the actual data, the actual financial and enrollment data for Spring Hill College in Alabama.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the most recent Spring Hill audited financial statement has a reference to going concern. And for those of you new to the podcast, going concern is a standard financial statement note that says the college is assumed to be going ahead and operating as a business for the next year. When account, when auditors say that there is some reason to doubt that a college will be able to be continuing on as a going concern,

That's not a good thing. It's a strange use of words, but that's what it is. In the most recent audited financial statement for Spring Hill College in Alabama, in note 20 to the financial statement, here's what the quote says, the college has reported negative cash flows from operations and the results of current year operations has resulted in a decrease in net assets.

And therefore, substantial doubt was raised about the college's ability to continue and again, as a going concern.

The audit goes on to say, management's evaluation of the events and conditions regarding those matters are also described. And the auditors say, in spite of the management's explanations, the auditors say our opinion is not modified with respect to that matter, meaning auditors have financial concerns about Spring Hill's ability to continue. But the president, Dr. Van Brunt says, hey, we're cool. We're going to make it. We're going to survive. Here are the things we are doing well.

Gary (08:01.302)
You can't promise futures in this market.

So to the data, as I always do to the data I go, and this will be posted, the show notes will include the, this happens to be a YouTube video, the show notes will include a link to this video. The net income margin for Spring Hill College in Alabama, in Alabama decreased more than 60, six zero percent since 2021. The end of year endowment in 2024 was negative. I've seen that before, but not very often.

At the end of 2024, the cash and equivalence of cash, cash equivalence, was a measly $1.3 million. There was a way to calculate these cash on that. I haven't done that for this college. enrollment was down 33%, a third for those of you that didn't pay attention in math class from 2016 to 2024. The net tuition revenue of 2016 was 17, 17 million, down to 12 million in 2024.

Gary (09:04.718)
and the four year graduation rate at Spring Hill College in Alabama, less than, average less than 55, 0%. The six year average was barely in the mid 50%. So not only does this have serious financial issues, they're still not graduating their students. You've heard me say that before. One thing they're doing well, huh.

I should have given you a sarcasm alert. Institutional support expense per student has increased almost $2,000 in the last reported eight years from $6,500 to about $8,300 as institutional support, especially management support at that college. So gosh, Dr. Van Brun, one of us is using actual data to draw our conclusions, to make our point.

The other of us is engaging in what I would describe as willful and future speculation, not based on anything more than unfounded opinions. Trade schools, let's go to trade schools in Minnesota. Alex Jokic at KSTP on July 25th in Minneapolis had a story, growing enrollment at trade schools in Minnesota. Now there's some specific data here, you can read the story, I'll have the link in the show notes.

But this is an example of a technical and trade college, trade school, aggressively marketing what they do. Just like colleges, just like the traditional four-year colleges market what they do, so do these trade and technical schools. This is for Dunwoody.

Gary (10:57.26)
This is for Dunwoody, I missed his name here. This is for Dunwoody College of Technology in Minneapolis. And they're noting that the average starting salary coming out of Dunwoody is $62,000, more than $62,000 per year and all sorts of numbers that are good. And the reason I bring this up is they're not just sitting still. These technical and trade colleges, and maybe they're not all as successful as Dunwoody, I don't know.

They're marketing their education, their right out of school income. And it's just yet another, yet another market pressure, another point of market pressure on the traditional four-year higher education route. Page three, risk and resilience. Okay, that's the headline and the Inside Higher Education Story by Josh Moody.

on July 22nd, the subheading reads, college business officers, CBOs, identify financial threats to their institutions, especially in the near term. They also hint at confidence in their abilities and the institution's ability to adapt. And this is from the annual survey of college and university chief business officers. They had responses from 169 institutions in 2025.

They're both public and private non-profits. And the responses were gathered late last spring and April and May. And here's some quotes, here's some notes from the story. Amid the uncertainty, amid the uncertainty in higher education, about three in five, not quite 60%, of these college business officers rate their institutions, financial health, as good or excellent. Okay, that's 60%, a little bit less than that. What?

Let's see, 100 minus 60, that's what about the other 40 %?

Gary (12:56.622)
Those don't, that's a lot of colleges that don't have confidence that their institutions financial health is good or excellent. Maybe it's average, all right, maybe. Maybe it's average, but that's 40 % of say 3,000 colleges. That's a lot.

That's a lot, despite these challenges in higher education, we've talked about those earlier today, respondents were much more confident in their institution's five and tenure outlooks. All right, maybe. So 73 % of these college business officers are believing that their college or university will be financially stable over the next five years. 71 % say they'll be cool over the next decade. In 2024,

It was 85 % looked good over five years, now it's down to 73 % in 2025. And the 10-year outlook was essentially the same, 73%, but this year 71 % for last year. And again, that's a fine way to write that, but what about the other 30 plus percent who are not, are saying they're not confident for whatever reasons.

Some 11 % of these CBOs say they have had serious internal discussions about merging with another college or university.

About the same as last year's survey and most of these say they're doing it proactively, not in the face of imminent closure. All right, I'll take them at their word for that. And 16%, final stat, 16 % of these business officers report serious internal discussions. 16, 1, 6%, serious internal discussions about consolidating some programs or operations. And this 16, 1, 6%, seems awfully, awfully low to me in the face.

Gary (14:46.062)
of all the layoff and cutback announcements that we have seen in the last many, many, many months. And just finally, 28 % of 100 college business officers describe themselves as very or extremely confident in their institution's current business model, not finances, but business model. So they're saying in effect, finances look good, but the model sucks. Again, I'm paraphrasing, that's not.

in the story, and that's not in the story at all. In my mind, that's not a strong endorsement of where the industry is, and that's not a surprise to anybody. And I haven't for a long time had college ambulance change the story. I've got one now. Santa Heights University announced a few weeks ago their closure, and the ambulances are lining up. This is from Jackie Smith at michiganlive.com. This was on...

in July earlier this month. And there were in this story about two dozen college ambulance chasers. This is of last week.

Gary (15:59.47)
And the story reads, welcome Siena Heights University students. And this is the headline on web pages for these college ambulance chasers saying, come to our college. I looked at four of the colleges listed. There were, think, 10 or so listed. Just because you know, you've seen me talk about this before, some colleges engaging in this college ambulance chasing for students of closed colleges are not particularly strong themselves. So Ashland College.

Their net income margin has decreased since 2021. College, all the way down in Florida, not anymore, close to Michigan, has been below zero on their net income margin in the last two years. The College of Wooster in Ohio, all sorts of issues. They have been below zero on their net income margin. We can call it profit. Colleges don't like to do that, but that's what it is. The College of Wooster has been below zero in four of the past five years. And all of it in Nazarene below zero.

on their net margin, their profit in five of the last nine years. So to wrap this week.

To wrap this week, I asked my favorite AI engine, and I use Google Gemini most of time, to give me a paragraph, a paragraph description on what is happening across all of higher education this summer. So here is my edited version, no sense starting from scratch, so I let the AI tool help me. Beats the heck out of starting with a blank piece of paper. And of course, it talks about lots of transformation going on, talks about the enrollment cliff, and many colleges are engaging.

in more diverse revenue streams, accelerated degrees, micro credentialing, monetizing assets, whatever that means, through innovation hubs. All right, maybe, best, those colleges that are just starting that in the summer of 2025 are a day late and a dollar short. All right, we'll grant them that one. AI.

Gary (18:06.818)
The AI tool told me it's no longer a futuristic concept, but one rapidly gaining acceptance, but it also noted though faculty adoption lags behind student enthusiasm and concerns about academic integrity. What else is new? Faculty lagging when something new and different comes along and...

I guess the last one that is worthy of note is merger activity. mentioned that a minute ago and I'm not seeing much at all. There's some I'm aware of and maybe it's happening. Maybe there's a lot of &A, merger acquisition or merger discussions taking place behind the scenes and that's fine. But given this industry's history, I'm doubtful that that's happening. And what does all of this mean?

It means uncertainty many, many times over. And so whatever role you have in higher education, in leadership, if you're faculty, staff, student, parent, community leader, board member, please, please don't lose sight of the economic reality that there are too many colleges and not enough students willing to pay to go to those colleges. No marketing, no programmatic changes, no additions.

no cutbacks is going to change. The cutbacks might change that economic reality. And so in my mind, consolidation, and I've talked about this before, consolidation is the functional word. Layoffs, cutbacks, closures today, followed by massive merger activity, the facts of life for this higher education industry in the summer.

of 2025. As always, I am grateful for you making the time to listen to the podcast. I'll be back next week in August of 2025 with more of this week in college viability. I'm Gary Stocker. Thanks again for listening.