This Week In College Viability (TWICV) for Aug 25, 2025

It is This Week in College Viability news and commentary for August 25th, 2025. Hi everybody, Gary Stocker back, and I'm determined to say in front of the blue Yeti microphone. It does a good job for me. I like that Yeti microphone. Lots and lots and lots of enrollment announcements last week, so I decided to do a little tally exercise. My Google Alerts sent me these enrollment announcements, as it does every week, and you will be interested to see how many of these enrollment growth announcements were really nothing more than carefully qualified announcements, and then how many were clearly legitimate growth stories. And I'll have that for you in just a couple minutes. And hey, as always, as always, if you would forward the podcast link Forward it to your higher education friends and the faculty, administration, board members, neighbors. No sense in just you being selfish and getting the latest news and commentary on the whole industry. Share with others if you would. And stories for this week, for the week of August 25th. What does it mean? What does it mean when a college announces a record enrollment I'm going to talk about the college viability 7-second check. Strange things, just strange things are happening at Our Lady of the Lake University in Texas. I'll have details. And guys, I have a professor, a college professor whining about cutbacks on low enrollment majors. We'll talk about that. That's the state of Indiana. And how about yet another, sadly, yet another College getting accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission, HLC, while graduating less, graduating less than 30% of its students in 4 years. Just devastatingly bad. And then in this week's wrap, an update on the free College Viability Report available at mycollegeviability.com. So what do we always start off with? Layoffs and cutbacks. Bennington College announces layoffs of 15 staff members. The college's president, in a statement announcing layoffs, said the school is confronting an uncertain economic economy and challenging an overall environment for higher education. This is by Corey McDonald on VT Digger. The links will be, as always, in the show notes. And I've got a couple college dribble stories for you. Today. The first one is from the president at DePaul University, Robert Manuel, Manuel, on August 22nd. And here's the new tagline at DePaul University in Chicago: At DePaul, we major in you. At DePaul, we major in you. I'll pause while you, while you process that one. Here's, here's the announcement, at least some of the announcement from I assume Dr. Robert Manuel, who is a president at DePaul University. I'm proud to announce the launch of our new official tagline and brand strategy. Our new brand showcases DePaul, how DePaul transforms students into leaders who make a meaningful difference in the world. Our society needs graduates who can do more than just perform tasks. This brand is a fresh way to express what has always defined DePaul, Preparing people who succeed in their careers and drive positive change wherever they go. You could release that brand name announcement for almost any college in the country and have similar kind of thought processes. So there's, there's no differentiation. And as I've said before, a college education is a commodity. Yes, the campus is in different locations, different size, different names. Different courses, different faculty. But at the end of the day, the commodity is that piece of paper. That piece of paper that says, "Hey, I got some 120 college credits.

I was consistent and persistent enough to pay attention, to go to class, and to do the work." That, my friends, is a commodity.

How about a second dribble?

We're high on dribbles this week.

Dribble number 2. This is the quote, word for word. It's been great actually. And every week the energy on campus is just getting greater and greater. I'll pause while you digest that profound announcement. It's been great actually.

And every week the energy on campus is just getting greater and greater.

Gary Stocker says, that's me.

How do you measure energy level on campus?

I'm guessing there's no actual gauge for that. Trivial number 3, from the University of Utah.

All right, I'll do a name this time. Students and families increasingly recognize the return on investment of a University of Utah education, folks.

I read all this stuff.

I cannot begin to tell you how many times I've seen that almost identical phrase with a different university, a different college on the end. And I'll remind you of the graduation rate. It'll come up again in today's podcast later on, how few colleges actually graduate even half of their students. Even half of their students in 4 years. Mike Nitzel had a story in Forbes, "As fall semester opens, several major universities tout record enrollments." And we'll talk about that in a little bit more detail in a minute. This was from August 22nd.

And I took that story and I posted it to social media.

And here's what I wrote. I wanted to share this on the podcast.

And I do this on occasion.

So enrollment is up at some colleges, absolutely, no question. Several major universities, big boys, the Power Fours, the Ivies, and some others, I'm sure. But this is kind of a, kind of a no news is bad news story. No news is bad news for hundreds and hundreds of colleges that can't post a story. They cannot post a story about positive enrollment numbers. And when a college— when colleges in general have bad enrollment, I am seeing either no news— that's the saying, that's the quote—

or carefully worded and highly conditional announcements. We had more students this semester than last semester, right?

That's qualified, that's conditional. No college, of course, wants to announce an enrollment decrease. So in almost all, but not all cases, in almost all cases, they hide that news as much as possible. And you've heard me say this before, it can also be argued that enrollment is at best, enrollment is a secondary indicator of a college's financial health.

It is of course the tuition and fee revenue generated by these enrolled students that's the primary indicator. Coming into play is tuition discounts and all sorts of other factors. And finally, you know, I didn't pay really close attention to my graduate-level statistics class, lo, those many years ago, but I do recall, I do recall that a 1-year bump in anything, up or down, a 1-year bump doth not make, doth not a trend make. And so when a college says we are up from 1 year, 2 years, even 3 years, that's not a trend in my mind. And we look at, at 9-year full-time equivalent enrollment, a nice standardized measure. We're looking at 9-year enrollment trends on the College Financial Health Show with Matt Hendricks and me. And I'll tell you, I may not have put it in these words before, but when Matt and I look at most colleges not all, but most. When we look at the enrollment, the FTE enrollment of these colleges, the slope of the line is negative. That's also known as decreasing. It is negative decreasing for a preponderance of public and private colleges. So it's time— I don't— man, I can't remember the last time I did this. And a Gary Stocker editorial The 7-second check on college enrollment stories, right? And again, it's that time of year when colleges flood us with good— they say good— enrollment announcements. So I used my Google Alerts for college enrollments just for last week and captured all of them that I saw, and there were lots. And I'm not going to read each one, it would take too much time. I am going to count them into 3 categories. The first one is legitimate enrollment increases, and I look at the data and that's legit. The second is, is going to be from kind of a questionable reporting list. Let's call them the highly spun stories. And as I went through dozens, dozens and dozens of enrollment stories in preparing for today's podcast, I made some gut calls. If I wasn't sure, I called them real. That happened a couple of times. And I did note as I was reading these announcements that some colleges were better at spinning numbers than others. And there is one other category, demonstrated decreases. Those, those news stories that said, hey, our enrollment is down. So let's look at the data. I counted 41 total stories. I read more than that, but some just, I couldn't make a call. 41 stories, 13, 1-3, were legitimate real increases. 32% of the 41. Qualified or hidden data, they just said students showed up, had 24 of the 41 stories. That's 58%. So in my quick assessment, about 6 in 10 college news reports about increased enrollment are at best, are at best short-term observations. And as our friends at Forbes like to do with college enrollments, these colleges took a morsel of data, took morsels of data and made them into statistical meals of marginal, marginal value, marginal utility. And in those of the 41 colleges, that I have in this little tally exercise, 4, 4 in 41, just a smidge under 10%, said our enrollment has decreased. Now, you and I know that there are hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of colleges across the country with enrollment decreases. We will hear about very, very few of them anytime soon. We only— we typically only hear about those when those colleges make cutbacks or layoffs. And they'll reference decreasing enrollment. And I understand if you say the enrollment's down, there's an element of self-fulfilling prophecy, and folks will read that and say, hey, I'm not going to a college like that.

And even, even MSN, they had— their headline reads, caution behind the headlines. While these early enrollment reports are encouraging, MSN says they are preliminary and represent only a fraction of national institutions.

Absolutely.

Universities— MSN goes on to say universities naturally spotlight positive data, masking potential declines elsewhere. And they ask some questions as to what's going to happen in the future.

So I, I—

there were, there were some options I had here. So here's, here's an example. I'm going to read you an example of a highly qualified, highly conditional, and somewhat misleading enrollment story. This is from an internal press release, and, and if you would please listen to the whole story and wait for my data point— I've got two of them, my data points at the end. All right, this is a press release. Morehead State University, Kentucky, is experiencing a period of remarkable momentum with fall 2025 new student enrollment surpassing pre-COVID levels and making a multi-year high. Multi-year high, would that be 2, 4, 10, 200?

I don't—

it's not—

I don't know.

That's just plain silly. It goes on to say our team is excited to welcome one of the largest incoming classes we have experienced in recent years. That's always an indication of a qualified story, recent years. We haven't seen enrollment like this since pre-COVID, said Dr. Heidi Reed, who is the assistant vice president for enrollment management. I guess that also means there's a vice president for enrollment management. She goes on to say students are looking for the best value, and Morehead State University provides that.

Keep—

stay with me now, stay with me. Our national rankings—

again, they're not listed.

Everybody's got a national ranking of some sort. Our national rankings combined with our beautiful campus and affordable tuition make us an attractive option. This enrollment comes at a time when colleges and universities across the nation are experiencing a decline in enrollment. And finally, she says, finally, she says, we believe that this enrollment growth is due to students recognizing the value of a college degree, specifically a Morehead State degree. And thanks to those who waited for the whole story, here's my two cents. Here's my observations. Morehead State College, Kentucky. Morehead State College has graduated less than 33.0% of its students in the past reported years.

I did not see that referenced in the story anywhere, and the only time it's referenced is when I do stories on this in almost all cases. That's why I argue it's, it's somewhat misleading. They're not upfront that they can only graduate— they only have the systems and processes in place to graduate 30 out of every 100 students that start at Morehead State. Now, I understand someone else who graduated I understand some took 5 or 6 years or 7 years. I understand, but it's the comparison that matters. It's that 4-year traditional standard. If you want to go 6 years, I can do that. Just— it's not just Morehead State, it's too, too, too many others. Our Lady of the Lake, Texas. Our Lady of the Lake in Texas. Students say that the university gave them no viable options to complete their degree. Our Lady of the Lake started the fall semester this last week with 19—

1-9—

fewer degree programs than it had in the spring. Students say the university isn't meeting its obligations to them. That's the subheading. This is by Camille Phillips on— Camille Phillips, excuse me— Camille Phillips on Texas Public Radio on August 19th. The story reads, in part, facing a budget deficit, Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas discontinued 19 degree programs. Although Our Lady officials stated they would ensure enrolled students could complete their degrees, students in the now-deleted programs, especially a leadership program, say this hasn't happened. And, and there's some details, and again, I'll have this, the, the, the link in the show notes to the story. Our Lady of the Lake has declined to respond. They're not talking. Has declined to respond to specific student concerns, providing only a general statement that they are committed to helping students graduate. Of course, the students, however, feel the university is being dishonest and protecting its own interests at their expense. Amen, brother. How many times do we see that happening? And other students and even a former professor have reported similar issues. He refused— he or she refused to be identified. And here's the issue for students: they can't simply transfer to another school without losing significant time and/or significant money. The story notes that these students have filed complaints with the university's accreditor— good luck with that— and are exploring legal options, believing Our Lady of the Lakes has breached its contract by not delivering programs they paid for. And I guess the essence of this story is what I've talked about before. Who are these colleges looking out for? An easy argument can be made, it's they're looking out for the college, and I understand the fiduciary responsibility, but they're not looking out for their students, and that's got to be part of that fiduciary responsibility. Page 3. Let's go all the way out to the West Coast— the left coast, excuse me. The University of Oregon faculty speak out against looming layoffs next month. Nathan Wilk at KLCC had the story on Oregon Public Radio on August 22nd. Faculty at the University of Oregon are raising concerns about impending set of layoffs. The university is seeking a 2.5— an average of 2.5% cuts across its schools and colleges in order to help fill a budget deficit. That's interesting wording. It said it will notify affected staff of the layoffs the week of September 7th. And here's an opinion piece. Here's an opinion piece from, from an Indiana University professor. And the headline reads, Indiana's attack on Indiana University is gutting academic programs. I don't even know what that means in terms of opinion. And this professor, Dr. Jeffrey Isaac, says, I've taught thousands of students at IU, Indiana University. Now I'm watching politicians destroy the academic excellence which made, that made their success possible. This is on August 22nd on the, on the, in the Indianapolis Star. Dr. Isaac said programs thrown into limbo include American Studies, Religious Studies, Philosophy, Comparative Literature, and almost every, every language other than English. Many of these programs offer courses with high student enrollment, Dr. Isaac says, even if the programs graduate few majors. And that was a standard, the threshold in Indiana, 15 majors graduating over the course of 3 years, so an average of 5 per year. He goes on to say some of these programs perform crucial service functions like the teaching of foreign languages. He says many offered nowhere else in the United States. I'd like to see some citations on that. Or they offer courses central to distributional requirements. I don't know what that is. Distributional requirements of undergraduate degrees. He notes the folklore The Folklore and Ethnomusicology program. The Folklore and Ethnomusicology program, an enormous resource for students at the Jacobs School of Music, is ranked number 1 in the country. I don't know what the point is on that. Folklore and Ethnomusicology. I wonder why they don't have 15 graduates over the course of 3 years. Sarcasm, I'm sorry. I should have given a sarcasm alert on that. So, Dr. Isaac, you know, the faculty at IU had decades, decades, and you were there many of those decades, had decades to note and adapt to changing higher education needs from your customers. And as I've shared many times, the market always responds. And while your opinions are important, certainly feel free to express those, your I guess your 37 years of academic isolation doesn't really make you very qualified to offer non-academic guidance, business guidance, to Indiana University leaders. And Dr. Isaac is a James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science. Okay, that makes sense. Professor of Political Science at Indiana University Bloomington. Dr. Isaac is also a member of the Bloomington chapter of the American Association of university professors. We are who we are, I understand, but the lack of perspective, the lack of economic understanding that there are too many colleges, too many college seats, too many majors, and not enough students willing to profitably fill all of those seats in this country. And that's not going to change until there are fewer seats and probably fewer, many fewer colleges. Mostly private, but certainly some public. Here's a headline from WGBH Radio, August 20th. Kirk Carapaz has the story. Some Emerson College faculty— that's in Massachusetts— have lost trust in their college president. Well, gosh, I've never heard that before. I messed up again. Sarcasm alert. I've never, I've never heard that before. Professors say they were left in the dark about the school's financial situation and when a series of layoffs would come to an end. All right, I went and briefly looked at the data on this, and of course I'll have the story link in the show notes. And right, the, the net income margin and the net tuition revenue are okay, they're trending in a good direction. Here's what I think is happening at Emerson. Their leadership is looking at two things. They're looking over the last 8 years since 2016, total operating revenue is up 48%. That's, that's good, that's really good. But total operating expenses are up 57%. So do the math on that, cut your fingers and toes. That's a 9% gap in expenses— too many expenses compared to revenues. And they're trying to get ahead of the game. Now, if the leadership at Emerson College are choosing not to share those details with faculty like I just did, and maybe they don't have access to it— drop me a note, leadership at Emerson College, I'll I'll show you how I get that data. If they're not— they're choosing not to share those details with faculty and staff, that's their problem, not mine. How about another story about college degrees not really working out? Gen Z men— Z for zebra— Gen Z men with college degrees now have the same unemployment rate as non-grads. Generation Z men with college degrees now have the same unemployment rate as non-grads, a sign that higher education, higher education payoff is dead. This is from Preston For, who's a staff writer at fortune.com. I missed the story initially, it was out on July 2nd. I've got the link for you here. Here's the summary: Generation Z is increasingly slamming their degrees as useless. And new research indicates that there may be some truth, some truth when it comes to the job hunt. In fact, the unemployment rate of males ages 22 to 27 is roughly the same— ages 22 to 27— roughly the same whether or not, whether or not they hold a college degree. Digest that again. It's, it's, it's another factor pressing downward on the higher education industry. The perception— and perception is the same as reality for most folks— it is a perception that college isn't worth it. And again, not for everybody. I will say again, my college, my first-generation college experience Absolutely fabulous. Set me up in so many ways, and millions of other students continue to benefit from that. But it's always on the margins. Economic decisions are always on the margins. And more and more of the students, it appears, are deciding that the traditional college route is not good enough, not good enough for them. I think it's been a couple weeks, it's been a couple weeks since I had an accreditation story. And for those of you who listen regularly to the podcast, you can guess where this one's headed. Arkansas Tech University passes Higher Learning Commission Assurance Review with flying colors. It's August 19th, an internal press release from Arkansas Tech. So I'm going to read— I think I did this a few months ago. Stay with me. Here is the quick summary. 5 bullet points on Higher Learning Commission, HLC accreditation is based on 5 overarching criteria. The institution's mission is clear and articulate and articulated publicly. The institution acts with integrity. The institution provides quality education. The institution demonstrates responsibility for the quality of its educational programs, learning environments, and support services. And the institution's— finally, the institution's resources, structures, processes, and planning are sufficient to fulfill its mission, improve the quality of its educational offerings, and respond to future challenges and opportunities. Arkansas Tech University, flying colors. That's an internal document, so they're spinning that baby. The enrollment over the last 8 years at Arkansas Tech University down some 1,800 students. Somebody's choosing not to go there anymore. And like I shared earlier, the 4-year undergraduate graduation rate at Arkansas Tech University, less than 30%, 3-0. And they're sitting, I believe, on 10-year accreditation. I'm so sad, so sad. And let's do the wrap. The MyCollegeVill— the MyCollegeViability.com free college report has been available for 3 weeks now, and really with minimal marketing on my part yet, the number of requests from students and parents and college faculty has been noteworthy. Not quite 200 requests And as I make time to market this report that's coming, it's likely— it's quite likely the requests will grow into the thousands and probably many thousands. So why, why do I bring this up as I wrap up the story, as I wrap up today's podcast? It's the tipping point. It's the tipping point that I have talked about so many times. As you have heard me say before, We appear to be in a period where the college student market is moving toward bigger names and bigger colleges— the Power Fours, the Ivies. So our free and soon to be released paid reports will be a resource for students and their families to make more informed decisions about the financial health of colleges they are considering before adding them are putting them on their search list, or if they're transferring, before looking at transferring to college. And so essentially, College Viability, my business, my company that started in 2019, is kind of becoming the higher education version of the Kelley Blue Book. Of course, the Kelley Blue Book kicks tires on cars, and here at College Viability, we kick the data on colleges. And I've also— you've heard me call it the reverse FAFSA. Families give their financial data to colleges, and the apps that I have created give consumers, students, families, and others timely comparisons for private colleges they are considering. They're getting the data, the financial data about colleges, just like colleges collect data about them. So whether, whether you are a college leader, a college board member, or faculty or staff, student or family, there's a College Viability app for you. We have a series of apps available, and you can go to either collegeviability.com, one word, or mycollegeviability.com, two separate websites, to see what we have and to grab your own copy of that free download report on college of your choice.

And soon we'll give you access to unlimited number of colleges through a paid product.

And, and what happens, what happens when in the coming weeks, months, and years students take that College Financial Health Report to on the college tour and say, hey, why has your enrollment been down for the last 8 years? Why is your graduation rate below 40%? And trust me, it's going to change the market. I don't know when, I don't know when, but when we make that available, that information available to more and more students, they'll ask more and more informed questions. And base their college decisions on the data and on the responses to those questions.

Hey, I'm coming back next Monday, even though it's Labor Day.

I think I'm going to put out a podcast next Monday.

And then again, I'll ask you, please share the podcast with colleagues, with college leaders, with board members, with neighbors, family, friends.

Let them hear what's going on in the higher education industry.

So for College Viability, or @CollegeViability, I'm Gary Stocker. Thanks as always for listening. I'll be back next week.