@janjmom
Agree, this doesn’t sound good at all.
Here’s the Inside Higher Ed article about the post-fall-semester -2019 closing of Marygrove College, Detroit, Mich.:
Add Marygrove college in Detroit shutting down in August
And yet another college cuts programs and positions… https://www.abc27.com/amp/news/local/lancaster/elizabethtown-college-announces-program-staff-cuts/2077312400
I just checked… Elizabethtown is a school of about 1,600 undergrads. The article said that 15 students would be effected by the cuts.
Certainly not a GOOD sign, but maybe not as bad as the headline seems to imply.
The red flag is the number of open jobs that they are opting not to fill.
I love Elizabethtown College so seeing that they are cutting programs is sad. They just built a beautiful new student center that probably increased their debt load.
Meanwhile, they are starting a PA program, and I think that will be in high demand. Over time I could see resources shifted in that direction over liberal arts programs with lower enrollments.
Elizabethtown’s endowment is $76M, which means they have some time to fix the financial hole they’re pulling out of, but not a lot of time.
(I have a bit of a soft spot for Elizabethtown, because they sent me the very first bit of college junk recruitment mail I ever got back when I was in high school in the 80s.)
Interesting article - https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/06/what-its-like-when-your-college-shuts-down/591862/?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Regarding Champlain College - does anyone have any further information? I see above the post about the President stepping down. What happens next? We are visiting there next month, hope it’s not a waste of time.
Mt. Sierra in Monrovia, CA (a for profit school) announces closing, effective immediately…gives staff and students one day notice, cancels grad ceremony. I hope that people stop supporting for profit schools
https://www.sgvtribune.com/2019/06/26/drowning-in-debt-monrovias-mt-sierra-college-closes-for-good/
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Hampshire intends to enroll an entire class next year.
https://www.amherstbulletin.com/Amid-scrutiny-from-accrediting-agency-Hampshire-College-will-admit-fall-2020-class-26561478
Would anyone take the risk with Hampshire?
The governor of Alaska just line-item-vetoed 41% of the University of Alaska System’s state appropriation, structured so that it will come entirely from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (the flagship) and the University of Alaska Anchorage (the largest campus in the system). The veto can be overridden by the legislature by 5 July, but as of now the governor has the votes.
Under the assumption the vetoes hold, the president of the system will be granted the authority to declare financial exigency next month: https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/education/2019/06/28/dunleavy-veto-is-devastating-says-university-of-alaska-president/
Green Mountain College (Vermont) has placed its campus on the for-sale real estate market, according to the following Times Union (Albany, N.Y.) newspaper article, linked here:
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/College-closes-now-campus-is-for-sale-14070368.php
Click the following link for an interesting Inside Higher Ed article (published 7/11/19) about 10 factors that place small colleges/universities at risk for closure:
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2019/07/11/potential-indicator-colleges-may-face-major-financial-challenges-opinion
Good article, but one I have to question: Tuition discounting greater than 35%. The latest NACUBO survey finds that the average tuition discounting rate is nearly 50%—so setting your bar at 35% means that you’re going to have a lot of false positives.
@dfbdfb–WOW. Does that NACUBO figure include need-based financial aid in calculating the average tuition discount? And do you know how they define average? As in, average across all college students in the US, or average across all colleges w/o looking at # of students enrolled?
The average discount for freshman per the NACUBO study is actually above 50% (50.5% 17/18, 18/19 estimated 52.2%) The article says that Nacubo defines the average tuition discount rate as "institutional grant dollars as a percentage of gross tuition and fee revenue”
Thanks @Mwfan1921 – I am still unclear.
Does this discounting include financial aid? The article seems to use the term grant to mean both need-based and non-need-based.
This sentence would suggest that the grants are not need-based.
"This year, an estimated 89.8 percent of freshmen received financial aid from their private colleges and universities, which covered nearly 60 percent of the listed tuition and fees. More than three-quarters was awarded as need-based aid or was merit-based aid that helped meet demonstrated financial need.”
And then this: "It shows that colleges are really trying to provide financial aid for their students. We’re getting close to 50 percent of students being given aid in the form of grants and scholarships.”
I don’t know what percentage of students attend public universities vs private, and this study only reported on privates.