This Week In College Viability (TWICV) for February 19, 2024

It's This Week in College Viability for February 19, 2024. Hi, I'm Gary Stocker, and let's start off this week with true confessions. I'm going to run long today, even though I've already removed some good stories for this week. Each week I shoot for 20 to 25 minutes, but there's just too much news going on in higher education that's relevant to financial health, viability, cutbacks, layoffs. And I'm starting to ponder adding a weekly Thursday or Friday episode to the podcast. I'll let you know in the coming weeks. And here are the stories and commentary in the February 19th episode of This Week. FAFSA delay responses— there are some good ones and there are some mundane ones. We'll talk about those. Webster University, a frequent flyer, wants to redirect restricted donations to unrestricted, and that's not going over well, as you might imagine. The University of North Carolina Greensboro faculty oppose academic cuts. Faculty protests, as I have shared many times, are about as new as snow is white, grass is green, and the sun is hot. Multiple lawsuits filed against St. Augustine's University for not paying bills on time. Ladies and gentlemen, we have seen that before. Let's call it a likely indicator of imminent closure. The Columbia College president in Chicago is there one day and gone the next. And how about a $1 enrollment deposit for Upper Iowa University? I'm going to make the case you would be better off spending $29 to buy the 2024 Private College Viability App and learn that that $1 might not be a good investment. And as always, layoffs and cutbacks. We have lots this week. Marietta College took out 3 dozen administrators and faculty. The move comes after the private nonprofit in Ohio unveiled plans last year to eliminate 10 academic programs with low enrollment. This is from Lila Burke at Higher Education Dive. As always, I'll have the links to these stories in the show notes. Concordia University will cut staff and reimagine its Ann Arbor, Michigan campus. And this is from Kelly Meyerhofer in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week. And I'm going to reimagine that both will undergo, both colleges will undergo massive consolidation. Or isolated closures. And then CUNY, Colleges and Universities of New York. Queens College faces backlash over faculty layoffs. It can happen, it happens. Queens College of the City University of New York has laid off 26 of its full-time faculty members. Same story, different names that we see all the time. University of Fort Smith, Arkansas considering the removal of 5 degree programs. And this is from the 5 News CBS support a staff report, and I guess this is from Fort Smith, Arkansas. What's interesting here is according to the University of Arkansas Fort Smith, multiple degree programs could be eliminated after being deemed non-viable, deemed non-viable due to a variety of factors including graduation rates and enrollment funds. I have no idea what that means, but what's interesting is There's a number. And further on in the story, uh, the, the provost, Dr. Shadow J.Q. Robinson, said, and I quote, a lack of enrollment has certainly been the driving factor. We are talking 100 students total. So let's do the math. 100 divided by 5 programs, so 20 students. So Fort Smith, University of Arkansas Fort Smith, is suggesting that 20 students are needed for a program or major to be viable. We'll see if we can continue to follow that story and others like it, I'm sure, in the coming weeks. And guys, you can't continue this story without a protest. Gavin Wayne, a senior theater major at Fort Smith, says, I fear that this would just kind of be— well, I fear that this would just kind of be announced and then swept under the rug And then I'm guessing with a defiant tone, he suggests, but we're theater majors and we're not going down without a fight. Page 2, Governor Kevin Stitt, can't remember, wants higher education consolidation. We've seen this in Wisconsin, we've seen this in Connecticut, we're seeing this in Pennsylvania, it's happened in Georgia. And this is a story from Carmen Foreman in the Oklahoma Voice. It's getting mixed reaction, as is not gonna be the case. Republicans in the state of Oklahoma say they want to see the details. Democrats say they want to spend more money. Both are responses we see elsewhere. And then that was from Rick Seltzer's newsletter summary. And then Seltzer also had a story about the FAFSA delay, and he referenced several major higher ed systems. And he listed the University of California, California State U, and the University of Minnesota last week joined the ranks of institutions that are postponing May 1st May 1st date by which students have to make a decision on the colleges they're going to attend. And I've said this the last couple weeks, I'm telling you, there are colleges that are working as I speak, I bet you, to get financial aid offers out without waiting for the FAFSA data to come in. And it looks like one that's rising to the top is St. Louis University here in the St. Louis area. This is where our podcast originates from. And this story is from Eric Hoover in the Chronicle on Valentine's Day. Time for Plan B, the headline reads. The FAFSA waiting game is forcing colleges to adjust on the fly. Well, that's what Seltzer talked about. SLU, though, is doing it right. So here's a quote from the, from the Eric Hoover story in the Chronicle on Valentine's Day. So St. Louis U created its own institutional aid application that replicates a— that replicates the FAFSA's questions Families who complete the optional— it's an optional form— will receive a comprehensive aid award listing institutional grants and scholarships, plus any state and federal aid that the university determines that a student is eligible for. And applicants who submit the form promptly will get their offers by the end of February— good for them— weeks before colleges expect to begin receiving. And that's important— begin to receive processed FAFSA applications. Now, this is good stuff, and here's why. In, in the early reactions to the FAFSA delays, I am seeing most colleges being mundane and simply extending the decision deadline. They're just extending, extending the decision deadline. Nothing wrong with that. It's mundane. It's not particularly creative. Doesn't take much work, in my mind, on their part. But Mark Salisbury from tuitionfit.org had predicted this. To the consternation and fierce pushback of financial aid professionals. He predicted that colleges will find a way around the FAFSA delays, and he's proving to be right. And St. Louis U looks to be one that is heading that— I've heading out the innovative, aggressive, creative approach. And when we talk about Upper Iowa University here in a couple minutes, you'll find the other end of the spectrum— creative but not necessarily as nearly as strong. Not even the same category of strong as St. Louis University. And in frequent flyer news, donors sue to stop Webster University from using scholarship cash. And this is from Steph Kokoyan and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Now, quick history lesson. Last summer, the story started. Webster didn't pay rent, and that became a legal issue, that became a news story. The same story. Steph Kokoyan and Blythe Bernhardt in the Post-Dispatch reported both the chancellor and president were paid big bucks, the biggest in the region. They further reported that Webster was losing tens of millions of dollars over the last many years and thousands of students. And most recently, an employee was thought to be accused of embezzling somewhere around $2 million. And now Webster wants to move restricted endowment funds. They want to move restricted endowment funds. Those are donations for an express purpose. The Gary Stocker Nursing Scholarship, you know, with $10,000, and student gets the earnings from that as a scholarship. Webster wants to remove— wants to move restricted endowment funds to unrestricted, that effectively the university can use those funds any way they want. It's not quite that simple, but that's the gist. And it appears from reports from Steph Kokoyan in particular in the Post-Dispatch that Webster has a bond due in 2025, and the financial ratios as part of the covenants for that bond can't be met without moving donor funds from restricted to unrestricted. Now, I've not heard of that before. That certainly doesn't mean much, but that's an innovative way, if nothing else, of meeting those ratios. But as you might imagine, Webster University alums, some number of Webster University alums are seeking legal remedies to keep their donated funds only for their originally intended purpose. Ouch, in lots of ways. Stay tuned on this one. Page 3, of course, the headline reads, of course, University of North Carolina Greensboro faculty oppose academic cuts. Ashlyn Warta of the Martin Center for Academic Renewal early last week on February 12th. Her subheading reads, "Professorial"— that's a big word— "Professorial self-preservation is a bad reason to put off right-sizing the university." Now, as I read that, I think I'm going to invite Ashlyn Warta from the Martin Center to my house for Thanksgiving. That is a profound observation and one that needs to be reinforced. And there's nothing wrong with self-preservation. Absolutely, professors are welcome to engage in that. But on the other side of the proverbial coin, there's going to be folks like Gary Stocker at This Week in College Viability, and with my partner Joseph Pellerito on College Counterpoints, to say, hey, there's another side to this story, and sometimes the market has to adjust, and that requires adjustments, consolidation, and trauma. To those involved. And I, you know, this is a faculty one, and I know I poke the faculty bear on a regular basis, and I just, I want to point out that I also am comfortable, and you see me do this on a regular basis, poke the college leadership bear. And I do this, I hope, in an entertaining and challenging way. I know I carry an attitude, and that is with intent, because my point of view is that higher education leadership is just as tainted as it is for most faculty groups. College leaders, in my mind, are too often steering their academic ships toward rocky landings. And as I've said before, and I'll say again, until the supply and demand of college students, of college seats and college students willing to pay for those seats, until that supply and demand reaches something close to an economic equilibrium, we will continue to see the same news stories but with different college names attached. St. Augustine's University not paying its bills on time. This headline reads, multiple lawsuits filed against St. Augustine's for not paying its bills. This is from Akilah Davis and WTV Channel 11 Eyewitness News. and from Raleigh-Durham, Raleigh-Durham in North Carolina. And this was last Friday. Now here's the story. Two vendors for St. Augustine sued for non-payment. Now those payments came— actually made those payments just a few days before the university failed to pay its faculty and staff on time. And again, this is from Akilah Davis, Channel 11 Eyewitness News in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. And then last Friday, this is last Friday, that would have been the 16th, 17th, 17th. Students, some students at the university told ABC 11 that they had not received their financial aid refund checks from this semester or last semester. I haven't seen that particular part of a story for a while, but I have seen it before. And there's also reports in this story that trash at campus apartments and dorms continue to pile up due to the absence of university maintenance staffers. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, leaders and followers, how many times, how many times, how many times must we see these stories before we hit that inevitable tipping point? And the tipping point is that private colleges in general and smaller and mostly rural private colleges are at risk. For financial chaos and potential closures. I wish I had good news for the next story, but it's not. Manhattan College— the chair of the Board of Trustees responds to the Manhattan College faculty's vote of no confidence. Now, I think this is my third no-confidence vote, uh, in 2024. If you have more than I have missed, send them to me at gary@collegeviability— that's college Viability, one word, gary@collegeviability.com. But here's what I wanna focus on in the Manhattan College mess. And I quote from the story, and this is from the internal news source, the McQuad, Manhattan College Quad, I guess. The administration terminated faculty on the grounds of financial distress without providing tenured faculty with the notification and severance as contractually required by the faculty handbook. Now, I don't doubt for one millisecond the essence of this story. There are faculty handbooks that for decades have tied the hands of college leaders for better or for worse, and probably both directions. But what if, what if those handbook guidelines are a leading cause? They're probably not the leading cause, but a leading cause of colleges' financial traumas? What if those handbooks are the source of operational restrictions that are driving colleges to layoffs and cutbacks and closures? And here's my thought. When the history of higher education, the period of higher education is written long after I'm gone, I believe one of the main lessons learned, one of those lessons will be that higher education leaders didn't focus on the consequences of leaving those faculty handbooks challenged for too long. They should have acted on those a long, long time ago. And then last week in Chicago, the president of Columbia College in Chicago met with the student senate, back at the student senate, I think it was. And he apparently met, wanted to meet with them more regularly as the financial crisis deepened at his college. And before we talk about the rest of the story, let's go to the data. And I'll remind listeners that the 2024 Private College Availability app, the executive version, the faculty and staff version, and the version for students and families went out last week. I'll have links to that in the, in the show notes. But let's look at the data from that app for Columbia College. In 2022, their revenue per student was $19,000 and change. Their expenses per student was $30,000 and lots of change, so their revenue-to-expense ratio was 62%. Their enrollment over the last FTE enrollment, which is the one we always use in the app, was down almost 2,000 students. They're admitting 96% of applicants. That's a really high number. Their admission yield was down 2 points. Admissions yields are down a lot. Their full-time and retention rate for year 1 to year 2 was pretty miserable, 67%. Their institutional grants in just 2022, they're unfunded, their discounts, merit aid, scholarships, whatever you want to call them, was almost $70 million. Their institutional grants at $2 million is not, not the weakest I've seen, but not very strong. And their tuition and fees from 2015 to 2022, down almost 60 $3 million. So on Wednesday, the president at Columbia College met with student faculty. On Thursday, he said, I'm leaving, I'm out of here. And the details are abundant. I'll of course conclude the link in the show notes. And undoubtedly, the president at Columbia College in Chicago is culpable for the mess he has at least had a significant role in creating. But where is the Board of Trustees? Does the faculty have any culpability? This mess, this financial mess that I just reviewed, this enrollment mess that I just reviewed, didn't happen overnight. There's a geesh in there somewhere. Page 4: Desperate This is the headline: Desperate Upper Iowa University. Desperate Upper Iowa University in a February 15th— so they didn't get them on Valentine's Day, they waited a day— on February 15th, this is email to applicants for the fall of 2024 enrollment. And I'm going to read to you the— just part of the email. Last week we reached out— and again, this is the applicants to the college— we reached out regarding the FAFSA and its delay. This week we decided we wanted to help you reach your goals of going to college. From now through March 15th, so about a month, you can pay an enrollment deposit to Upper Iowa University for $1. And it goes on to say, by depositing, you will be able to sign up for housing, sign up for registration day, and officially become part of the Peacock family. And I gave some guidance on how to do that, and it was signed the admissions team. Okay, points to Upper Iowa University. For speed innovation. Nothing wrong with what they're trying to do, but no points to families, no points at all to families who seize on this offer without looking at the dire financial straits Upper Iowa University is in. As I mentioned a couple minutes ago, the 2024 Private College Viability App for Students and Families is available. It retails at $49. I've got it out there for $29, $30 through the end of March. Families considering Upper Iowa, spend the $30 first to compare all the private colleges you are considering, because Upper Iowa is not going to compare well among most, if not all, of the parameters, the 5 parameters we use in the dedicated College Financial Viability app for private colleges, for families, students and families. So way too much content to cover. I did get done in the time frame I was looking for, so my initial intro was wrong. I am still going to start pondering 2 times a week College Viability Podcast. There might be an opportunity for that. But folks, in wrapping this one up, we're in the middle of it. We are in the middle of it. We don't know it yet, but we are going to look back at this 2022 to 2024, 2025 maybe, time period and realize, looking back, that consolidation in the form of financially unhealthy private colleges was underway. Consolidation in the forms of closures today, and I believe mergers in the future. And hey, let's do this: if you have stories or leads on stories, send them my way. If I'm going to do 2 podcasts a week, I may need some more content. So if you have stories or leads on stories, send them to me at gary@collegeviability— that's one word— collegeviability.com. gary@collegeviability.com. Until next week, I am Gary Stocker, and I am at College Viability, and this is This Week in College Viability.