This Week In College Viability (TWICV) for Feb 9, 2026

It is Monday, February 9th, 2026. Hi everybody, Gary Stocker back in front of the blue Yeti microphone and the smooth-running Riverside FM podcast site with another episode of This Week in College Viability News and Commentary. And my thanks— apparently I have been saying the word Yeti wrong. I've been calling it Yeti, and I had a listener kindly and lovingly send me a pronunciation guide that I have now dutifully copied and pasted in my show notes. So it's Blue Yeti. Blue Yeti microphone works like a charm. Nice microphone. I use it for everything that I do. And where do we go this week? We start off in a minute with Southern Oregon University warns of a financial crisis by early 2027. Some interesting mea culpas associated with that one. Buffalo State program cuts spark reactions among students. Oklahoma governor, the Oklahoma governor nixes tenure at most but not all of the state's public colleges. And we're going to go inside the collapse of the California College of the Arts. The school gambled on a major campus expansion and lost. And there may be, there is much more to the story than that. Of course, much, much, much more on this episode of This Week podcast. And hey, Don't be a podcast hog. Share the podcast link with your higher education friends, neighbors, workmates, students, faculty, all those. Let others get the perspective, another perspective on the higher education industry and the many, many, many challenges it faces. Layoffs and cutbacks. Southern Oregon University warns of a financial crisis and payroll risk by early 2027. This comes from Jefferson Public Radio. Jane Vaughn had the story on February 3rd. Southern Oregon wants $15 million more from the state. All right, we've seen those kind of requests before. Nothing new about that, nothing strange about that. Happens all the time. Here's where it gets interesting. Here's where the mea culpas kind of come into play. Southern Oregon University President Rick Bailey is quoted as saying, Bailey— again, the president, Rick Bailey— Bailey told attendees that he should have known, they should have known about the crisis sooner. I think it is likely that we could have had this awareness of the cash flow challenge this past summer, he said. I sure wish I could have told all you last summer, hey, we have about a year when we're going to have these issues. He said multiple factors contributed to a lack of awareness, including staff turnover in the finance department and the transition to a new software system from Workday. Okay, President Bailey, that's, that's a way to take one for the team. Blame it on the software. It goes on to say, the story from, the story from Ms. Vaughn goes on to say, board members raised concerns about how the university reached this point and why they only learned about this situation Monday, last Monday. There's a capacity issue and it's not a competency issue at all, said Carson Howell, vice president of finance and administration at the college. University leaders said the budget and finance offices are understaffed, financial reporting is insufficient, you think, and financial policies need struggling. Again, President Rick Bailey: as I look back on 4 years as the president here at Southern Oregon University, I admit that our awareness has suffered. President Rick Bailey said, you think? Sheesh, you know, this is probably a double geez. Oh my. 5 layoffs at Idaho State University. They axed the College of Education. And splits the biology department in mass restructuring. Shelby Harris had this story for the Idaho State Journal on February 6th. Pocatello, Idaho, they're laying off 45 people at Idaho State. They are working to address an $8 million budget deficit. This is by a statement required, caused by a state mandate to reduce its budget by 3%. 12 faculty positions out of 634, not quite 2%. Staff positions, 21 out of a little over 1,100, 2%, and administrative total positions being cut, 11 out of 75, or not quite 15%. And then just another story, we do it every week, the layoffs and cutbacks continue across the industry. Santa Monica College theme continues. Santa Monica College to eliminate more than 70 jobs despite pushback from students and staff, February 5th. Gail— Marina had the story on the Corsair Online. The story reads, the Santa Monica Board of Trustees adopted two resolutions to reduce its workforce by more than 70 positions to help solve the college's budget crisis. The layoffs will primarily consist of non-academic employees such as custodians, tutors, and assistants, according to the meeting agenda. Sarcasm alert!

I wish I had a sound effect for that.

Sarcasm alert. Well, those types of positions— custodians, tutors, and assistants— and their compensation, that's going to have a big impact. Protests, of course, followed. And of course, you've heard me say before, that's to be expected. Whatever miserable graduations out of college—

it's about 35% for 4 years at Santa Monica College—

whatever those rates are, we have At many colleges, I guess students still find time to protest something. Buffalo State is next. Angela—

Angelica Gallagher had the story on February 17th from WIVB News Channel 4. Cutting back several academic programs at Buffalo State, uh, student Dakota Richter, a graduate student in higher education and student affairs administration, says Write this down now. Dakota Richter says, "I think the administrators at Buffalo State are treating us like a dollar sign," said Dakota Richter. Okay, Buffalo State is deactivating one undergraduate program, two graduate programs, and some minors and certificates. Okay, well, probably a day late, probably a dollar short on that closing of programs and stuff. A couple of the programs they're closing, of many, Environmental Geography, a bachelor's degree, and Conflict Analysis and Resolution as well being cut, and many others as well. It's been stated, they go on to write in the story, it's been stated that these programs have low enrollment, low retention, and low graduation rates, which kind of bad writing here, which for our program is definitely not the case, said graduate student Sierra Mills. Also, also in the Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration Master of Science program. Well, Ms. Mills, you don't assign any numbers there. I presume you don't have them or you just won't report it, one of the two.

But let's do this, Ms. Mills.

Drop me a note to gary@collegeviability— that's one long word— gary@collegeviability.com, and I will send you a free courtesy link to the 2026 College Majors Completion App from College Viability.

You can look at the numbers yourself.

Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, but you still have some data you can act on and not just state things without data behind them. Matter of fact, let's go beyond that. If you're a reporter, if you are a reporter and worried about engaging in, in regurgitation reporting and want some more data, I'll make you the same offer. Drop me a note, make sure the domain name has a legitimate news organization as part of it, and I'll give you access to the Majors Completion app as well. And I might find some other data tools that you could use also. College Dribble— finally, we're out of layoffs and cutbacks. College Dribble— there's a capacity issue. There's a capacity issue, and it's not a competency issue at all. This is from a public college in financial trouble. Page 2.

University of Arkansas Little Rock continues enrollment growth for spring 2026, reads the headline. This is an internal document from the college on February 5th. Chancellor Christina S. Drail, D-R-A-I-L-E, is quoted in the story, internal story, saying growing on top of last year's historic enrollment "Is a powerful affirmation of the values students see in a UA-Little Rock education," said Chancellor Christina Estrell. "These numbers," she goes on to say, "these numbers represent students choosing a university that supports their goals, invests in their success, and prepares them to thrive in their careers and communities." And regular listeners, you know, I can see you, I can see you now. Regular listeners know where I'm going with this. The 4-year graduation rate— let's have a contest— the 4-year graduation rate at the University of Arkansas Little Rock averages less than 25%. Fewer than 25 out of every 100 that start at the University of Arkansas Little Rock graduate in 4 years, and that's over the past 9 reported years. And again, like I've seen and reported so many times, access and enrollment are proclaimed as a big deal. Graduation, graduation isn't, isn't even mentioned. And if you want to look at real data, not just the short-term spun stuff, if you're looking at longer-term, a longer-term trend, enrollment, FTE enrollment is down not quite 30% from 2017 to 2024, down about 2,000 300 students. The source of the data is iPads. They don't source their data, the University of Arkansas Little Rock. Matter of fact, I don't see any reference to data. It might be in the story. I just didn't put it in my show notes. Niagara University reports a 73% surge in spring transfer enrollment. Michael Friedman had the story at Niagara University News. Again, internal. I went to data on the College Financial Compass. From Perspective Data Science. Yeah, enrollment's up, student revenue is up, good for them. Net income margin, also known as profit, but we don't call it that in higher education— net income margin has been below zero, below zero for the past 9 reported years. Somebody at Niagara University is spending more than they are taking in every year, every single year between 2021 and 2025. And they've also been spending down their endowment, but the enrollment surged. Uh, my fault, my mistake, sarcasm alert. But their enrollment surged. You know, I'm going to go with the geesh, single geesh on that one. These, these colleges continue to report data like nobody's listening, and maybe nobody is. I am. Not only do I have this show and other shows that I do, But the reporters that interview me, the social media that I post, come on, guys. All right, or not. You know, you spin, I spin. That's a social media post I had last week, got I think close to 1,000 hits on that. Spin it any way you want, but no, I'm gonna be there to look at the data from an independent perspective for your students, your faculty, your staff, your communities to look at. Fitch. The rating service Fitch downgrades Manhattan University in New York to BBB- from BBB+, and Fitch says because of weaker student demand, lower selectivity, which means they're admitting everybody, very weak matriculation rates. I presume that means graduation rates. Thanks, Fitch. And a sharp decline in first-year enrollment despite strong application growth, and that's largely because of the Common App, they say. Manhattan University's high dependence on student-generated revenue and inability to stabilize enrollment continues to generate generally accepted accounting principle-based operating deficits despite significant budget cuts and an increase in, in the endowment draw rate to 7% in each of the last 2 fiscal years. And of course, that endowment draw should be somewhere between 4 4.5-5%. Page 3. The international stories have been out all over the place. International graduate enrollment is falling off a cliff. There's versions of that story all over the place. Mark Sclero, who is the retired CEO of the Independent Education Consultants Association, posted again— I think I had him on the show, one of his posts on the show, maybe last week or a couple weeks ago. And he notes that some of these independent educational consultants, career counselors if you will, are reporting that some students are being offered admission to programs they did not apply to. Admissions to programs they did not apply to, an apparent effort to retain tuition-paying students and fill empty seats with institutional finances as the driver. He notes also that there's another factor associated with this enrollment cliff, this international student, international graduate student enrollment cliff, and that's stratification. And I've heard this before, but I'm going to share it again. Elite universities blessed with brand power and resources will continue to attract international students while public and mid-tier institutions bear the brunt of enrollment declines. And again, just another market factor to the detriment of these less-than-brand names, less well-funded, less well-financed colleges. Another factor that will lead, is leading to increased closures, continuing closures, and what I still believe in the coming years will be large-scale mergers. You heard all of those things here. First, Taylor Swack at the Chronicle had a story on January 30th. The headline read, more colleges are using direct admissions and they're still discovering what makes it successful.

All right, good reporting from Ms. Swack.

Here's what she wrote: more than 300 colleges, many of them under pressure to maintain enrollment, now accept students through direct admissions. As they've done so, they've found themselves questioning whether these prospects differ meaningfully from traditional ones, whether they differ meaningfully from traditional ones that are the ones that seek out these colleges, not the ones these colleges are reaching out to unsolicited with direct admissions.

Well, of course they're different.

Of course these prospects are different. They've looked at your college with some interest. They're not receiving unsolicited communication saying, hey, you're enrolled. Or you're registered, or you're signed up, or you're admitted. Colleges are reaching— colleges are reacting to chronic low enrollment by effectively begging students to enroll at their college. Again, it goes back to access and enrollment, not graduation. Direct admissions, in my mind, is a nice way of saying unsolicited— I'll call it unsolicited recruitment.

I'm not saying it's wrong.

I'm just saying clearly that it's a different audience and, and there's more depth in the story. And as always, I'll have this story link in my show notes. And, and let's keep in mind, let's keep in mind the low graduation rates. And this is from a LinkedIn post I think I did in response to Ms.

Swack's story, the really low graduation rates.

And my, and again, my focus and my belief that colleges focus on enrollment and access and not graduation, and the fact that there are so many colleges with pathetically low, less than 50% graduation rates in 4 years, that supports my position. And recruiting and enrolling marginally committed students will almost certain, almost, almost absolutely certainly continue to result in marginal or worse graduation rates and the accompanying college debt those students will be burdened with.

I've said so many times, there are too many colleges and not enough students.

Colleges need the tuition and fee revenue, nothing wrong with that.

So they recruit for revenue, they recruit for tuition fees, not for college readiness, not for college aptitude, not for college interest. By the way, I posted something to Taylor Swack's story and she had quite a gracious and nice response to my compliments to her. Let's go to Oklahoma.

Mike Nitzel had the story in Forbes on February 6th.

The Oklahoma governor nixes tenure at most of the state's public colleges. Well, I'm just mentioning this story to show yet another market change Yet another market adaptation in higher education.

And I don't doubt, I haven't seen it yet, I don't doubt this one runs into all sorts of faculty and community and political protest.

Yet in my mind, there was almost certainly some determination by Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt that this was a viable plan for Oklahoma. By the way, the tenure cut Tenure deletion, tenure elimination does not apply to the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University. Continuing with market changes, the campaign to make professors teach more. Lawmakers in a few states— and that's Wisconsin, Utah, and Kansas— say faculty members don't work enough. Megan Zanies had the story on February 6th in the Chronicle. And here, here we go again. Market adjustments, market adjustment pressures on college faculty. 3 states, from Megan Story, Wisconsin, Utah, and Kansas, have adopted minimum teaching loads for professors effective this fall. I presume the fall of 2026. They vary by state, and most instructors, she fairly writes, won't notice a difference. But the adoption of teaching load requirements marks a significant expansion of conservatives' attempts to regulate the professoriate, not just what faculty members teach but how much. Now, I, I don't have a position on this, not going to waste time thinking about this. That's not my niche, that's not what I focus on. I will note, however, there, there appears to be some market movement, and markets always move. It's a market movement to, you know, have professors teach more and research less. Like it, don't like it, no opinion.

It's, it's not illogical.

And finally, page 4, inside the collapse of California College of the Arts. The school gambled on a major campus expansion, lost. Kate Talarico of the San Francisco Chronicle, excellent reporting, excellent reporting on this story. And here's the background for those of you not familiar. The California College of the Arts announced its closure and sale of its campus in San Francisco to Vanderbilt University out of Nashville, Tennessee a few weeks ago. So here's the essence of the story. The CCA board, the California College of the Arts board, was well connected to California Governor Gavin Newsom.

It appears CCA used those connections to secure $20 million in state funding. All right, they did it. It happens. The story, though, is also replete with, at best, a bad financial look for the college and some of its trustees, some of whom appear to benefit financially from transactions with CCA. Now, they're denying that, as you might imagine. Then the story gets more interesting. CCA said it raised $123 million dollars through a philanthropic campaign for a 2-acre addition known as the Double Ground. What it did not say in its public messaging was that it was borrowing heavily for that Double Ground property, a Double Ground building. The college had taken out $40 million for the project, adding to $95 million the school had borrowed for a new dormitory and a dining hall. Not to mention another $30 million in existing debt. That's $70, $165-some-odd million in debt. As collateral— this is, I think, where Vanderbilt probably came into play— as collateral, CCA pledged nearly all of its San Francisco real estate for those loans. The story goes on to say, in 2019, CCA created a special-purpose nonprofit entity to finance, build, and operate a new dormitory called Founders Hall. The college tapped the municipal bond market— nothing wrong with that— which allowed it effectively to effectively sell IOUs to investors whose earnings on interest would be tax-exempt. CCA sold $95 million in bonds. I mentioned that a deal that netted its financial advisors and the bond underwriters a fee of something like $2 million. The story continues. CCA contributed just $1.6 million in equity. The bond payment, which with interest came to nearly $195 million over 35 years, came directly, came directly, directly from student housing and dining revenue on the backs of students. Thus we build. As part of the deal with the bonds underwriters, the college offered the dorm itself as collateral and agreed to require freshmen and sophomores to live on campus. It also agreed to fill Founders Hall ahead of other dorms. And again, more gory details in the article. The link will be in the show notes. And so let's take this story to do this week's wrap. The CCA, the California College of Arts story is ugly in so many ways. It in my mind comes across as amateur hour in higher education, with students and taxpayers taking financial hits along with career hits, graduation hits for the students. There are public funds covering private mistakes, trustees operating at best on the fringes of propriety, one private college closing, CCA, and another Vanderbilt much stronger, taking over the campus, and I assume the liabilities. And then here's the point I want to make, though. This again begs the question: how many other vain trustees at how many other private and public colleges are currently engaged in this kind of survival scramble like California College of the Arts? How many other CCA-like stories are already underway at private colleges just waiting for some enterprising reporter like Kate Talarico at the San Francisco Chronicle to uncover this? And how many times will I do this story on the podcast? It's a rhetorical question for sure, but it's one I know I think about with some regularity. And, and to reporters, again, I'll offer my data, I'll offer my analysis for what it's worth to these enterprising reporters. Kate Talarico and others, reach out. gary@collegeviability.com. My access to the data will make your job much easier and more effective, give you better questions to ask. Again, drop me a note to gary@collegeviability.com and we'll Zoom. That's a wrap. Thanks again for making time to listen. Make sure you're not a podcast hog. Share the website and the podcast link with your friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues. I'm Gary Stocker for College Viability. I'll be back next week.