But lots of kids who have lived in suburbs all their lives want to live somewhere less boring, not MORE boring.
We have had two schools shutdown and two mergers in Boston in the last 5 years… less then a month ago a shutdown close to New York City (college of New Rochelle) and Nyack College has sold off one of their campuses… colleges are getting hit by bad decisions of management… enrollment changes… pool of students shrinking… economy doing extremely well… population of kids in the North East declining adding to the headache.
As I tell my kids target a strong college that will not shutdown … my MBA was at Thunderbird it’s now part of Arizona State (happy that it did not shutdown)
If over 400 colleges didn’t meet their enrollment goals this year, what will happen when the demographic shift occurs?
@roycroftmom They will just have to adjust to survive… some are major driven so they have gaps to fill (that large states school) and have branch campuses that still have space available … Some state schools will merge as we have seen in Georgia, Wisconsin and Vermont… Illinois has one of the major decline in state school enrollment and if they can fix the outflow schools like Alabama who heavily recruit from Illinois will have issues… Arizona is heavily depended on the excess of California…
There’s a list of colleges that still have openings every year, yet few shut down. I’m not so sure it’s a case for most of not meeting enrollment goals as much as merely having room for more if anyone wants to join them. If there’s open space at the school or within certain majors or whatever, why not let folks know? It doesn’t necessarily mean the bills aren’t being paid by the school and they’re desperate.
I’d worry more about small schools with declining enrollment whether they’re on the list or not.
This is another issue as flagship campuses grow and the pool of college bound students decrease they will gain students who would have gone to smaller private or state schools… a good example of state schools in trouble Cheyney University (has less then 500 students), Western Illinois (enrollment down to 8500 from 13600) , Southern Illinois university at one point at 35000 combined at both campuses now has only 20k in both with Cabondale which at its height had 24800 now has less then 10000, this goes on to a lot of universities in the north east and Midwest. Newbury college In Massachusetts has 5000 students at its hit in the 1990s but pressure to tried to change the direction and failed. Newbury closes this month with less then 700 students
Most not hitting their targets will adjust by cutting cost. What we see with weak colleges they just don’t recover from a management mismanagement (southern Vermont), Burlington (buying land with debt) or College of New Rochelle with 3000 students mismanagement or failure to execute a plan for growth (college of st Joseph)
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Some colleges have gotten it right and not only survived but flourished. Look at the Boston area. In the early 1970’s Boston University and Boston College were facing bankruptcy. There were rumors that BC would close. In 1990 Northeastern University faced an enrolment decline and financial problems. Today all three are among the most sought after colleges in the country and have seen significant enrolment growth and dramatic increases in entering student stats. Each of those colleges have transformed physically and academically. And yes they are expensive. All three were fortunate to have chosen leadership teams who could bring about these transformations. Some older alumni lament that these colleges are not the same as they were when they were students. If they had stayed the same they may not be around today.
Oh and in the early 1970’s NYU was also facing bankruptcy and possible closure.
Add Columbia to that list @TomSrOfBoston
@TomSrOfBoston and @airway1, being urban helped every single one of those colleges listed (and hurt every single one of them in the '70’s).
The NACAC openings list isn’t necessarily a good barometer of colleges in trouble. Many of them, there are necessarily openings at this time of the year—f’rex, the place I work at is an open-admissions college that takes applications right up to the start of classes, so of course we’re on the list. For others, it’s just a blip where their yield rate was 29% instead of 30%, which maybe in some cases is better than the pressures of the yield rate being 32% and possibly requiring an extra outlay in terms of leasing classroom space.
That said, it is a worthwhile datapoint, but it’s only one among many.
@PurpleTitan not really past few years Mount ida College, Newbury, Boston conservatory and Wheelock in Boston. College of New Rochelle, Marymount and Polytechnic merger with NYU in New York and DC saw Corcoran College and and Mount Vernon merging with GWU.
Does anyone want to cross reference the NACAC list with the Forbes ranking and take a few bets on any college with fewer than 2000 students?
I do wish there were decent (read: easily searchable) repositories of past NACAC lists—get a 5-year timedepth, and I’m right there with you on your idea, @Tigerle.
@TomSrOfBoston believe it or not BC transfer decisions came out today. 1580 applicants 75 admitted . And it looks like potentially 0 off waitlist this year. And neu and bu had high teen acceptance rates this year. BC has been pretty popular since Flutie in my circles. BU always a great rep. NEU has climbed the highest hill imho. Really good to see so many options emerging.
Harvard MIT Boston College Boston U Northeastern Tufts Wellesley Brandeis Babson Berkeley conservatory of music Suffolk u and many schools of lesser recognition but solid too. The law schools the med schools the business schools. Boston has to be a strong candidate for the leading college area “pound for pound” in the USA imho.
Surprising because don’t you know Boston’s not really a college town?
(Spinal Tap ? - one of my favorite lines in that movie)
Tuition discounting hits new high https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/05/10/nacubo-report-shows-tuition-discounting-trend-continuing-unabated
Hampshire College incoming class of 15!
https://www.boston.com/news/education/2019/05/09/hampshire-college-15-students-fall-2019
Any read on the financial risk of Erskine College in South Carolina? They are small (<1000 students), but their endowment looks okay (~$40 million) and their enrolled has been on a slight upswing since 2013 or so.
Regarding Hampshire College – this was in the Chronicle of Higher Education yesterday (but unfortunately premium content behind a paywall):
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Ken-Burns-Says-Hampshire/246271
(side note: is Ken Burns a household name? I mean I know who he is, and I would assume most here on CC would too… but these day one never knows!)