I think other state schools have done similar things with borrowing and spending. They’ve just managed to kick the can longer. The PASSHE schools come to mind.
Demographics and high interest rates might keep these consultants busy the next few years.
Time will tell with WVU. They do have a large Trauma/teaching hospital on-campus. I suspect WVU Health will eventually be WV’s medical insurer and provider.
I would say “No.”
Might I ask why not?
Most people view the state flagship as setting the standard for public universities in the state. If you lower the standard at the flagship by cutting programs and classes, then people are going to assume that the standards for other public universities in the state are likewise dropping.
On the other hand, if you cut programs and classes at a directional school, that’s viewed as more localized and less representative of education across the rest of the state.
I am not sure the quality of a school is a function of how many classes it offers as much as the quality of the faculty and students who attend.
In an ideal world every public college in every state would offer every conceivable major and program. But we’ve never lived in that ideal world. Many of the directionals are former state teacher’s colleges- with very focused, vocationally oriented programs. So going back to the original model- a public institution which trains its citizens to teach, nurse, etc. doesn’t strike me as a shocking development given some of the financial constraints these institutions are facing.
The kids who get the short end of the stick are the ones who want to study AI or Robotics or Classics- and the only commutable option gives them Early Ed or Accounting as their choices.
But it is significantly cheaper to find a way to subsidize those kids to live and study at the flagship, vs. maintaining the academic infrastructure at every directional. And in the case of West Virginia- if even that is too costly, and the result is a few kids every year going to Ohio or Pennsylvania- with a tax-payer provided subsidy- it’s still likely cheaper and higher quality than maintaining a bare bones program.
There are just some fields of study- nanotechnology? whose infrastructure is so costly that it would be a joke for every single four year college in the country to pretend it has a quality program.
There is a directional in my state which is still touting its “state of the art” radio station as a way of differentiating itself from the others. Any HS kid can produce a podcast in grandma’s kitchen with a couple of hundred dollars worth of equipment which is superior to what was “state of the art” back in 1985…
It is sad, it is painful, it is likely necessary for dozens of institutions to have their reckoning…
My first thought was exactly that: vicious cycle. Drastic cuts as in this case may be a necessary bandage given “where they are today” but absent structural changes in higher ed at the state level (e.g. combining some of the U’s with State schools), I don’t think this ends well.
I don’t think that this is where all of the recent comments have come from, but many of them seriously come across as classist/elitist/similar—saying things that basically boil down to “People who go to ‘lesser’ colleges don’t deserve niceties like foreign language instruction” isn’t a good look, y’all.
Who said that?
It’s very definitely what it sounds like when field coverage at regional publics (which educate more of the baccalaureate-level population than any other higher-ed sector) is considered less important than at flagships.
And I do recognize that for some fields, it makes total sense to limit where they’re offered, because it requires specialized equipment or is otherwise highly expensive (nanotechnology was mentioned upthread, veterinary training is another good one). But something that’s really, really inexpensive to offer, like foreign languages? That’s when it starts to sounds like the presumed objective of regional publics is to produce worker drones and that’s pretty much it.
ETA: I don’t think that that’s where such assertions are coming from, I should stress. However, it has the same effect either way.
I see where you’re coming from, and I appreciate you addressing this issue. I do think there are two differences for me in how I’m viewing the situation.
Perhaps foreign languages aren’t the best example, because (historically) most colleges have foreign language requirements that students need to fulfill, which would then pay for the faculty members’ salaries. But imagine a different field, like philosophy or linguistics ( 
), that are not required courses but that do not have much in the way of costs outside of humanties’ salaries. If there is insufficient demand by students at a non-flagship public university to pay for faculty salaries via their enrollment, then I would understand (though not be enthusiastic about) those programs being cut and only being offered at the flagship university.
In this instance, it’s not due to the non-flagship (or its students) being not worthy, but merely the economics of the issue. Ensuring that the state has at least one university where the offerings are strong (whether at the flagship, or at designated universities) is important to me, however, and I believe that there could be some subsidies for students who don’t live within commuting distance for programs that aren’t offered at their local Us to attend the flagship/designated schools with the offered fields.
So the above is where we differ. Where we might be more aligned, however, is in the vibe I get from some posters at CC that non-flagship Us are only for those who are too poor to go to a residential campus, academically inferior, or those who have other needs (health, family responsibilities, etc) that requires them to stay close to home. There are some terrific non-flagship publics, and unless they are highly ranked by USNWR, then they’re often not given any serious consideration by many on the boards. Of course, my comments are broad strokes and not reflective of all posters on CC, but it’s certainly a vibe that can come across when reading various threads on the forum.
It seems to me the flagship needs to include all departments relevant to human knowledge -all liberal arts, engineering, business, etc.+ land grant or sea grant mission.
Obviously some subjects will not be all encompassing and faculty may belong to more than one dept (FL professors often work with Film, Art History, History, African Studies, Asian Studies… and/or offer freshman seminars).
Then regional campuses can offer one specialty that the flagship doesn’t offer (so, one campus could have nanotechnology, and only one). All campuses would offer Math, English, History, Foreign Languages, as well as all basic majors but there would be less depth&breadth, for instance 3 FL instead of 12; general management, finance, and accounting, with the flagship offering supply chain, risk management, real estate and international business in addition to these 3 - with the consequence that if a student were admitted to study Russian or Swahili or risk management their financial aid woud make it possible rather than forcing them into another commutable major.
Those are just examples, that may not work for WV. But the point is that the entire system needs to be reviewed and rationalized where the #1 goal shouldn’t be “where do we cut faculty&courses” but rather “how do we keep a flagship that is coherent with its title&role and coherent with the rest of the system, insuring we serve the state’s future, its students, its regions, and its economic interests?”
It’s much harder than going through rounds of cuts, it takes time, it requires input, etc.
The place of HBCUs would have to be carefully considered and their identity preserved, too, and this could be very sensitive, too.
Nobody said that it’s less important. Just that it’s less noticed if you cut programs at a directional than the flagship.
The problem is that in many states, you are bucking up against history. In some parts of the country, the purpose of the regionals was to raise the standards and create quality control, spread best practices for agriculture and livestock breeding. Nothing wrong with that. And it was a noble goal when the area around the campus was rural and agricultural. But some of those campuses shifted to more industrial/post-industrial missions along with the population- hence accounting, finance, elementary ed.
Are you going to insist that every regional maintain its original focus- training farmers on best practices in agronomy? Of course not. Just as Harvard’s Board of Overseers does not insist it go back to training clergy, and Brown’s trustees don’t unilaterally mandate chapel (Baptist services only).
Things change. Online learning didn’t exist in the 1960’s when many of the regionals were transitioning out of “Teacher Training Colleges”. Who could have imagined Zoom back then?
I don’t think it’s elitist to recognize that it’s tough to shove a genie back in the bottle.
My company did a study a few years ago (pre-Covid) to identify the best low residency/online/technology enabled courses. (We offered a mini-MBA program with actual, live instructors, but were evaluating other options). BYU was offering one of the top rated intro accounting courses in the country. I watched a few classes-- the professor was absolutely amazing, engaging, mesmerizing. I don’t know if they still offer the course online or if they’ve gone in a different direction- or if he’s still teaching.
But it does make you question every dull and boring intro accounting course out there-- with students who don’t show up for lecture (a big problem), students who are scrolling their instagram feed during class if they DO show up, etc. For a college which offers a meh accounting class (how can you have a college without accounting you might ask), isn’t it a reasonable question to ask “why not offer your students the incredible and engaging online option with the guy in Utah?” Your tenured and experienced and wonderful accounting professors can teach juniors and seniors- presumably more interested in the subject than the bored freshman and sophomore taking the class.
The answer might be no, we’re not doing that. But not to ask the question???
I have a feeling far more people on this thread are worried about the cuts than anyone in WV ( except for the affected faculty). WVU will offer what it can; students can choose to attend or go elsewhere, even enjoying in-state rates in Ohio sometimes
Wow! What an assumption. I’m sure there are plenty of people in West Virginia who care.
Maybe they like the way the tradeoffs involved were resolved. Maybe they prioritize other departments or other things. As mentioned previously, few students chose to major in FL ( even if many were required to take it) and perhaps they do not want a FL requirement. Not all colleges have one.
If there was an uprising of popular opinion against the proposed cuts, WV politicians would take notice.
Most of the people who would be unhappy with the cuts other than faculty/staff and their families would be WVU students, prospective students, their parents, and alumni. Maybe not enough of a base to influence WV politicians but that doesn’t mean that they don’t care or that their viewpoints don’t matter. Unfortunately, people often seem to care only about cuts to programs that affect them personally.
I thought this was an interesting perspective on the causes from a recent graduate.
And as technology advances and people want to take more and more technical classes, the schools have to make room for them. The town I grew up in had a university with about 10k students. It had been a teaching program so that was still strong. Also strong theater dept (although small). And good music, foreign languages, and natural resources.
Now it has 8000 students. And has grown in computer sciences and a specialized engineering program. So where do you make the cuts? If a chemistry professor retires, do you replace him or add another computer science professor? If no one wants to major in bio but the bio courses are still needed for forestry majors or the engineering major, how do they handle the bio department? Merge it? Hire adjuncts?
Every school can’t provide every major, especially if it wants to add new majors. The state also has to balance the whole public university system. If may feel some majors are best offered at another school in WV (Marshall?)