This Week In College Viability (TWICV) for Oct, 20 2025

Gary Stocker (00:01.332)
It is Monday, October 20th, 2025, time for yet another episode of news and commentary for this week in college viability. Hi, everybody. Gary Stocker, thanks for making time to listen to this week's podcast. And of course, this is the podcast that talks about the financial health and viability of public and private colleges with data and with details and with perspectives offered nowhere else.

And as always, please, I encourage you to forward the podcast link to your higher education colleagues, your family, your friends, your neighbors. No sense in just you getting the latest news and commentary on this whole challenged industry. And here is where the show is headed this week. Of course, layoffs and cutbacks is higher education. There is a new fast calculator, a fast calculator.

for need-based grants and scholarships. I have concerns, but it's the market moving and I'll talk about that. There is a new accreditation story that is scary and I have been nice to the accreditors for a few weeks now. We're going to change that here in a couple of minutes. And another higher education decline story. That's how I'm going to wrap up the podcast today. And then I draw a fun, I think, an interesting analogy from days...

gone by and first of course, as always, layoffs and cutbacks. In Massachusetts, more than 400 jobs over the last six months since May of 2025. The Boston Business Journal found 400 jobs in the higher education sector. Of those colleges referenced, it included Worcester Polytechnic, Clark University, Harvard University, Boston University, Emerson College, and the Berkeley College of Music.

to North Carolina, laying off approximately 50 staff. You ready for some spin here? 50 staff to address a budget deficit. There is a review on positions to be completed here in November and no faculty layoff scheduled. hear that time and time again. So staff only and of course, I think I talked about last week, what were these staff doing before that they can be laid off and faculty not?

Gary Stocker (02:27.694)
it is, but I'll leave that alone for today. And here's the number. So short 14 million, one 4 million, 50 staff positions. Do the math, 14 million divided by 50, and you get $280,000 per year per person. Now, you and I both know that's not likely.

But that's all the story talks about, as if these 50 layoffs address a budget deficit, fix a budget deficit of $14.14 million.

And by the way...

The four-year graduation rate for these colleges in North Carolina from 2016 to 2023 averaged less than 30, 3, 0 percent. I'll have more on that later. Thomas Jefferson University to lay off about 650 employees. This comes after a $195 million operating loss layoff. This is from KYW News, Radio Matt Coughlin.

on October 15th. And what's interesting about this one is Thomas Jefferson University also has Jefferson Health System. And both are included in the layoff of about 650 employees. It notes that about 1 % of Thomas Jefferson University's 65,000 employees are being laid off. So what's happening here? Here's what's happening.

Gary Stocker (03:59.954)
whatever layoffs are taking place at Thomas Jefferson University per se, the college per se, are being buried, buried with layoffs from the health care part of the business. If I'm wrong on that, Thomas Jefferson University, I'm at Gary at collegeviability.com. Page two.

Leslie Turk at the current, current LA, Louisiana.com on October 16th has a story, Ms. Turk writes, as its undergrad enrollment slid the University of Lafayette, the University of Louisiana, Lafayette.

Hiring Sword UL Lafayette went on hiring spree. Even though their enrollment declined by 1,700 students since 2015, resulting in something like a $20 million loss in revenue, according to Ms. Turk.

Despite the downward trend, developing in plain sight over many years, the university's hiring nevertheless continued on an upward trajectory. Now they say with 554 positions created, I'm not sure I buy that writing, Ms. Turk. I'm sure 554 positions were hired. I find it hard to believe that many were actually created in that timeframe, but I did.

want to read some of the hiring titles, hiring job titles from that job ad job edition job creation, I guess, since 2015, a chief scientific officer, $2,900. That's just a salary. I'm not including the benefits because that would really get you to fall out of your chair. Chief Operating Officer at $275,000, maybe. An executive director, I don't know what, $220,000.

Gary Stocker (05:55.31)
Get this at University of Louisiana at Lafayette, an assistant, an assistant football coach. $207,460 plus benefits. An associate vice president, $207,000. Associate vice president for advancement options, $188,000. And both a chief innovation officer at $160,000 and change and a chief strategy officer. I hope they share offices.

and a chief strategy officer at $156,000. And the list goes on just to point out what many say, and that is higher education, both in the public and almost certainly on the private side, have way too many non-faculty hires taking place. And this is just an example at one public college, the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. Page three.

Do you want to know, have you ever wanted to know what you'll pay for college before even looking at a college? Well, a story in the New York Times and Carnes, C-A-R-R-N-S on October 17th, says new shows that nearly or writes that nearly two dozen private colleges are offering an online tool that factors in need based grants and scholarships to estimate a student's actual cost.

Now, all right, the market is moving. I can understand that. I have no serious concerns with trying something else. But two inputs, here are the two inputs. The two inputs are their family's income. And the second is the number of siblings they have in college. Just a number, not where, not how much.

And so this was two dozen colleges, yeah, private colleges. And I know it's trying to happen, Ms. Carr and to address this, they're trying to get more students, more families to say, hey, let's take a look by showing that the actual paid price will be less than the list price. And we know that to be true in a preponderance of situations. And they're using a rather modest tool to make that argument. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that at all. A little spin going on. And that's why I'm here.

Gary Stocker (08:12.408)
higher education quality control coordinator, just to make sure that the perspective of others is shown for these things as well. Let's go back to accreditors for page four. And I'm going to talk about cosmetology. Cosmetology without accountability, failures of a beauty school accreditor.

This is Jeremy Bauer-Wolf and Antoinette Flores on October 16th for New America. Of course, that is a think tank. I think it's a lovely think tank as I recall. And we're going to wrap this up, but I want to read some of the details from the story that Mr. Bauer-Wolf and Ms. Flores wrote. And first, they did a good job of talking about that accreditation is supposed to signify that a college has met certain quality standards.

doesn't reference financial ones, but I can live with that for now, that a school has proven to an outside entity, the creditor, that it has the staff, finances, laugh, laugh, facilities, and academic track record to educate students. Accredited colleges are the only institutions that we know, of course, accredited colleges are the only ones that can accept federal financial aid, like Pell Grants and student loans, which taxpayers fund.

Gary Stocker (09:36.674)
And of course, this arrangement is to make sure it helps cut back on fraud. Granted. So stipulated. Pearl Lands, P-A-R-L-A-N-D-S, Pearl Lands Innovative School of Beauty. I need one of those at my age. Pearl Lands Accreditor is the National Accrediting Commission of Career Arts and Sciences. The National Accrediting Commission of Career Arts and Sciences.

or as you and I going to talk to it from now on is NACAS, N-A-C-C-A-S. And I'm going to spare you details because it's long and it's detailed and well done by these two writers, by these two reporters. But this accreditor, NACAS, is just not getting it done. I have a link to the show, to the article in the show notes. And here's the issue that Mr. Barrow-Wolf and Ms. Flores report on. The issue is this accreditor for Pearl Lands and think other

colleges, organizations in their purview, they address one transgression at a time and envision a transgression and documentation, policy, finance, whatever. So NACUS then enables institutions to maintain their accreditation even as problems proliferate. For instance, they write a college on sanction might have a year to correct a problem.

But if a new issue arises during that period and the college resolves the original one on time, it gets another year, even if it's the same issue. And schools, of course, can and do, I presume, cycle through these violations for year after year after year. NACA credits more than 740 schools receiving federal money. This is from the Education Department. These colleges, those colleges,

took in more than one billion at the B in federal aid and enrolled 109,000 students in the 2022-2023 academic year. Do the math as we do here this week. Do the math and that's $9,100 per student in federal aid for those colleges that NACA sub-credits. It goes on to note that beauty schools yield much lower compensation than other majors.

Gary Stocker (12:03.34)
and that many of the folks who complete this requirement don't make enough income to cover their loans, and it puts them behind the eight ball right off the bat. In interviews and focus groups, some of these students and graduates told New America that their programs were often second rate and that they contended with problems ranging from outdated curricula to high instructor turnover.

And of course, this environment raises questions about whether programs like these are worthy of federal subsidies. If their graduates, whether it's cosmetology or anything else, have difficulty landing work and instead are burdened with what can be crushing student debt. And I'm going to go back to what I said many times before, this accreditor and all the others, this accreditor, NACUS, NHLC in middle states,

and the Southern Accounting Agency and others, they have a conflict of interest.

The college was even, this beauty college, even pro land, even pro land, innovative school of beauty.

Gary Stocker (13:21.806)
Pay easy, it's a creditor fee, I don't know what that fee is. So when an accreditor sanctions and ultimately closes a college.

It's a negative impact on the revenue for that accrediting agency. Tell me that's not a conflict of interest. And I know others have shared and I've talked before on this podcast that these are creditors say, well, we've got systems of processes in place so that there is no conflict of interest. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure I'm going to sign off on that. And it notes that colleges must report their accreditation status. And I think they do, especially for the major colleges, maybe not for

some of these, that's the case with ProLens. They're not reporting their status. And they did a little silent customer query. And I think two folks from this organization didn't even say to the prospective students that they were on probation. And I think most colleges admit that. However, it's my experience because I've looked for these things. It's a game of hide and seek. It's a game of hide and seek to find those references to a college being on sanction.

from their creditors.

And you've heard me say many times that major creditors exhibit a consistent inability in significant part to focus on the financial weakness of so, so, so many colleges in this country. And let's do a wrap with the story that Emma Pettit, the Chronicle had on October 15th, and the headline read, Americans' faith in higher ed has declined even further. OK, this is the diamond dozen story, I know, but it's a reminder. It's yet another reminder.

Gary Stocker (15:07.744)
And she cites some stats and she says, mistrust has grown in the last five years. This is from a survey from the Pew Research Center. It's down, numbers don't matter right now. She also notes that there have been some more recent surveys that show the perception is up of colleges and the value they provide.

One is from the Lumina Foundation, the other is from the Vanderbilt, the Vanderbilt Project on Unity in American democracy. OK, interesting. And the numbers are up. OK, again, I will stipulate that to be the case. Still, she writes, the trust deficit is unlikely to be closed anytime soon. While there's evidence that Americans think positively,

of higher education's research capabilities, there remains ample concern over things like price and political bias. Now, why do I close with this? Why am I wrapping with this? Two words, and those regular listeners are not going to fall out of their chairs. Two words, graduation rates. All of these surveys referenced above, all of these surveys are factually generic.

non-expert perceptions of the survey participants. All right, entirely valid. That's the way surveys work. That's what we get from those. We take them, we do our own critical analysis and move on.

What happens though? What happens though?

Gary Stocker (16:46.798)
if some enterprising survey company asks the same question with the added context of how many colleges graduate less than 50 % of their students in four years. For example, what about a survey question could be something like, to the participant, research shows that most public and private colleges in America don't graduate even half.

of their students in four years period. Does this give you confidence in the American higher education system? All right, made that up. But what if? What if there some context added to these surveys questions? It's negative, I understand. It's biased, I understand. But it's a fact. It's quite almost certain that those confidence numbers, I would do air quotes if this were video show, those confidence numbers will plummet.

And again, you've heard me say before, there are millions and millions of both traditional and non-traditional college students in this country who successfully complete college degrees. Yet there are at least that many, if we look at that 50 % number, there are at least that many who do not. There is a decades old joke about Microsoft.

And it goes something like, if Microsoft built cars, for no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day. Occasionally, your car would die on the freeway for no particular reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart the car, and reopen the windows of the car before you could continue.

And for some reason, back in the earlier days of Microsoft Windows products in particular, for some reason we would accept that. And I make the case we accept that today for colleges that can't graduate even half of their students in four years. That same analogy holds for graduation rates. We are accepting and or ignoring unacceptable failure.

Gary Stocker (19:09.28)
even catastrophic failure with low college graduation rates that would be immediately rejected in systems like cars or computers or refrigerators that didn't work half the time, transportation arrival times, electricity, and much more. Think about turning on your air conditioner in the summertime, and maybe on occasion it triggers a cascade failure that permanently blows the power transformer of your entire neighborhood

costing you something along the lines of 50,000 or your portion of that.

It's kind of similar, not perfect, but kind of similar to sudden financial need for students when there is some kind of irreversible system failure, none of sections, the course not offered, the major not offered any longer.

Gary Stocker (19:59.406)
How long would we accept that?

Yet we accept with effectively next to no protest, no pushback, we accept that less than half of all college students graduate in four years. Today's higher education is a failure on on the margins for many and the rather large margins at that, but nonetheless there are millions of successful stories. But on the margins,

There's too much acceptance of colleges that simply don't work for too many students. Agree, disagree, have another thought, drop me a note. I'm at gary at college viability, one word, gary at college viability.com. As always, thank you so much for making time to listen to the podcast. Make sure to share that link with others. I'll be back next Monday.

on the first day of November, third day of November to talk about, that's not right, I'll be back next Monday with more on this week in college, this week in College Viabilit.

Gary Stocker (21:15.298)
I'll be back next week with more on this week in college viability.