I read an article in Inside Higher Ed recently that said Marquette may be cutting a lot of faculty & programs soon. They cited continued declining enrollment, saying this will force Marquette to “reinvent” itself. Marquette is one of my senior’s top 5 choices. How worried should I be about this article?
This is one on DD’s list to look at as well, so I was eager to read the article. I think a lot of colleges are going through some belt tightening right now. I don’t know if it is cause for alarm, but I would be concerned about the 25% (yikes!) cuts to the College of Arts & Sciences if my student planned to major in one of the majors in that department. The possible upside is that it is still a “Top 100” university, but declining enrollment could make this more of a likely/safety than a match+ college for certain students.
Thirty years ago Northeastern University in Boston faced an enrolment crisis and the resulting financial problems. The university downsized from 18,000 FT students to 13,000 FT students. There were staff layoffs and a faculty hiring freeze. The university “reinvented” itself successfully. Today there are 26,000 FT students and it has been ranked in the top 50 for the past decade.
Marquette needs to do the same thing. Whether they have the leadership to do it and to overcome the naysayers only time will tell.
All colleges are taking a huge financial hit with declining enrollments due to covid. This holds true for the Jesuit as well.
I would reach out and contact the schools and majors shes interested in to see if they would share their plan.
I see your daughter’s interests and I’d say healthcare fields are much safer than theater right now. However both may limit enrollment numbers if they don’t have spaces for students to get that practical hands on experience.
I work for a Jesuit nursing program. We still have record high numbers and the university is leaning on us hard right now. As for reinventing, it’s a good thing. Streamlining processes and looking at new better ways to do things are needed. For too long academia has done things out of tradition and its okay to change to meet current needs.
Could be more of an issue for majors that are underenrolled and therefore easier targets for cuts.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=marquette&s=all&id=239105#programs
We know a number of Marquette grads so this post caught my eye and sent me to read the article. It sounds like Marquette is facing problems similar to many schools – how to adapt to a changing demographic. What led to the article seems to be the lack of consensus-building and transparency in the university’s response, rather than the fact that the university is facing budget and enrollment challenges. Of course, lack of transparency plus top-down decision making would describe a lot of schools. The question is, whether there is the leadership to manage through this. It sounds like the possible academic cuts are contemplated in the Arts and Sciences, rather than Business, Engineering etc. If a student were looking for, say, a double major in Philosophy and Classics, then as a parent, I’d dig deeper into the issue. For a B school or Engineering student, the experience may not change much.
While I appreciate the NEU example, that was thirty years ago and the population numbers and financial climate were much different. Higher Ed was already in trouble and the pandemic just accelerated that. The bottom line is that not all colleges are going to survive this latest crisis. The numbers are just not there. So while colleges can certainly reinvent themselves, we are facing a demographic cliff and some are going to perish. There is no way around that. Those of us who work in higher ed were worried even before the pandemic. If a college is just now figuring out they need to “reinvent,” it’s a bad sign. We knew the reckoning was coming, and many started preparing several years ago.
The difficulty comes in trying to figure out who is going to make it, and who is going to fold. I would look to see what programs and faculty they’re cutting, and how many. Are they starting with tenured and tenure-track faculty? If so, that’s a problem. That means they are moving to more adjunct or contingent faculty. There goes the research and any resources/grants the tenured faculty bring to the college. Are they cutting only the least popular majors, or even making cuts to some others? If it’s not just the few unpopular programs, that means they are desperate and see this as their only chance at survival. While it might save them for a while, it may only work for a few years.
While most schools are going to face significant budget constraints, I would do some comparisons and see which schools seem to be making deeper cuts than others. I would also check out the enrollment numbers. Was the school seeing enrollment declines even before the pandemic? How often did they miss their target and by how much? I think families need to be especially careful.
Final thought: as someone who has spent their entire career teaching in higher ed, I can tell you that things are always worse than what the public sees. Whatever you hear in the press is the part of the story that leaked out, or the part the college willingly disclosed to control the story.
Sorry to be doom and gloom. Just my honest opinion as a college professor that has been watching this situation in higher ed up close and personal.
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Milwaukee is NOT Boston. Location matters more than ever now. One reason many small rural schools are dying too.
Milwaukee is a hot city for young people – and as an empty nester, I’d move there in a flash if I weren’t so darn tired of midwest winters. Fantastic music, art, restaurant scenes, plus Bucks, the Brewers, Historic Third Ward, Walker’s Point, and Lake Michigan beaches etc. A lot of Marquette students we know chose it for its urban location, preferable to other midwest Catholic schools like Dayton and Xavier. So, if I were a senior administrator at Marquette, I’d be brainstorming how to capitalize on the MKE location. There’s a large student population in the city other than Marquette, with MKE Institute of Art and Design, UW MKE, and MKE School of Engineering.
As I stated above, Marquette leadership has to overcome the naysayers. In the 1990’s there were many in Boston who laughed at Northeastern’s ambitions.
@ProfSD thanks for your candor. Everything is cyclical. Industries grow, thrive, decline and then die or level out. Higher Ed is at that point now. You’re spot-on about controlling the narrative. Private sector does the same. “We’re positioned for growth and prosperity” as they layoff people is a common spin.
Boston is a great college city but I’m guessing the move to cities like Milwaukee is about low cost of living at this point.
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I want Marquette to succeed, as we know a bunch of happy alums who had a great experience. It’s not news that many schools outside the top 50 of any category (and some within in), should have seen the writing on the wall a few years ago that they needed to do serious strategic planning to figure out how to build on strengths, develop new ones, and adjust to the declining student population. And that kind of soul and mission searching works best when it is inclusive, drawing on research and ideas from every constituency within the institution. What made the news for Marquette is that it sounds like it was top-down, excluding various constituencies such as students, faculty, staff and alum. That leads to protest and confusion, as well as bad press. I hope that there is time for Marquette leadership to adapt, and that it doesn’t dig in its heels and refuse to listen.
I have very good friends who work at Marquette. I myself work for a Jesuit.
Colleges just like every other business right now are taking hits due to Covid. I don’t know a single person who has not felt anxiety and uncertainty about the future right now. We have hundreds of posts on CC alone about “what ifs” in regard to the pandemic. This is not isolated at Marquette.
I’m told that the leadership at Marquette has been having open sessions regularly where any staff or faculty at the college can come and voice their concerns. I do think it sounds like much of it is college dependent as well. My friend in health sciences has been happy with his dean who has been having weekly meetings with updates. It seems many are scared and angry about having to transition to online or hybrid formats. In sounds like some college deans there do not have as much of an open door policy. But many people want answers to questions that we as society just cant guess yet. As an educator I too have felt very strained with the extra work we have had to do this year. Some professors can pivot more than others.
My friend says extra work added with budget cuts such as halting 401k matches and travel expenses, or pausing research funds have some faculty beyond angry. His program just built a new building but any other programs that were looking at expansions now have to wait. Some of the more popular programs like nursing need more space before they can increase numbers but with covid reducing enrollment, there isnt the money for building renovations.
The college of the Jesuit I work for has lost a few admin type persons (1 to retirement and 1 to moving for family). They are not refilling those positions. Not rehiring those 2 positions alone is saving the university close to 200k a year not including benefits. I think many administrative roles may change.
Short story, I dont think Marquette is in danger of closing. I do think they may take away some majors and they may have to restructure some others. Covid will result in curriculum changes at many universities.
I agree about the Milwaukee location—that’s a big reason why my dd is so interested. She wants a decently-sized/big city and a typical collegiate campus. That it has almost all the major/double major/minor possibilities (all A&S) she wants & sits on the equivalent of an ocean is icing on the cake. She’s definitely not happy to hear this news. She plans to do more research into it but she’s not hopeful because, as she says, “2020 sucks!”
@2plustrio Thank you for the insight from your friends’ experiences at Marquette. That sounds pretty typical for university administration (my spouse and I are both faculty) – some deans handle it better than others, leading to wildly different perceptions and experiences. So, the Higher Ed article highlights a student’s protest and resulting discipline and adds anecdotes about faculty disgruntlement who object to being excluded from the conversation. And voila, instant story.
While I think we all want to be included in the conversation, the reality is that it is impossible. No business can make all their employees happy. I have several coworkers who have been quite vocal with their concerns and issues in meetings yet if administration chooses to do something that they feel will better most of their employees, those who were vocal will still feel “unheard”. My friend serves on some university committees and says Marquette admin very much is listening and trying to get data to make good decisions but ultimately, it may be against what the more vocal and angry faculty have asked for.
I understand that if my job were in jeopardy I would be fighting for it as well so I don’t blame the vocal ones either. As for the student, it sounds like it wasn’t so much the support of faculty that got her in trouble but perhaps more so the data she received and how she was spreading it but thats just my speculation.
@2plustrio I agree wholeheartedly!
My brother-in-law works at Marquette in the dental school as a part-time instructor (Friday afternoons). He was surprised that Marquette continued to pay him, and other very part-time faculty, throughout the pandemic despite not being open. They pay $1,000 a month, and the vast majority of the faculty teaching less than a day a week are private practice doctors who do not depend on the paycheck. So that gave him pause as it seems like they could have suspended pay to some of the faculty during that time. I don’t want to turn this into a debate, I’m just bringing it up as it may be an insight into finances.