Applications for undergraduate admission are significantly less in number for the coming fall. The director of admissions aid that potential applicants don’t know the facts about the recent events at Mizzou, but get inaccurate information from the media. What? Seems to me that Professor Click’s ranting was there for all to see on national television and on social media. She’s lucky her hot-headedness didn’t lead to a physical confrontation where students could have been injured.
I know applications were down, but I wasn’t expecting a 900 student drop in admissions. The last freshman class was about 6,500.
That’s an overstatement. While there is a slight decline in the total number of students due to demo trends, state flagship universities are the last to feel the pinch. Looking at the last few years of CDS info, the trend in applications has been up, not down. This decline little to anything to do with demographic trends.
Since the Missouri high school graduating class peaked in 2009-2010, Mizzou’s applications and enrollment has increased each year.
How do you make up a $20 million loss, when the state legislature is “unfriendly”?
“How do you make up a $20 million loss, when the state legislature is “unfriendly”?”
Well, I know one thing you don’t mess with- graduate teaching assistants health benefits. Ugh.
You decrease selectivity and get enrollment back up. Until you can do that, you increase class sizes. You cut expenses a little bit here and there and you decrease any merit aid that is funded out of operations as opposed to endowment. You pull more money out of the unrestricted portion of your endowment.
I find it hard to believe that enrollment will drop by 900, since as gettingschooled pointed out, you can decrease selectivity and raise enrollment. Mizzou officials may be overstating the drop, in an effort to avoid further budget cuts from a hostile state legislature. If they are not overstating the drop, then wow…900…
About 40% of last year’s freshman class was OOS and international students, so they do depend on OOS tuition, a drop in OOS applications will hurt. If enrollment does drop by 900, and it’s mostly OOS students, that’s a disaster.
State Flagship (high research) Universities have four main sources of revenue. Tuition and fees; State and Local Appropriations; Federal Appropriations (Net Pell) and Revenue from State and Local Grants and Contracts; and finally, Other Sources of Revenue (philanthropy, auxiliary services, grants and contracts, and endowment and investment income).
Tuition Revenue? Down
State Appropriations? At best flat, but a hostile legislature may lower it.
Federal Appropriations? Down (based on a reduction in Pell grants from a drop in enrollment). Research funding is flat.
Other Sources? Philanthropy is also going down, as is investment income (based on the current economy).
Based on the F16 budget, Mizzou nets about $305 million in tuition and fees and another $220 million in state appropriation. They projected about $60 million in Gift revenue. Another 190-200 million in Federal grants, Pell grants, State and other grants and contracts. About $40 million in mostly restricted endowment and investment income.
How are things at University of Missouri-St. Louis?
The enrollment drop hurts, but the real threat to the budget is the state legislature, where the battle has already started…
When your best supporters in the legislature, tell you to fire Click, it’s probably not a good time to insist that not only will you not, but that you plan on letting her complete the tenure process. How will the legislature react if she’s offered tenure?
Mizzou has received about 900 fewer applications than in years past, but no one’s said what the expect enrollment is the fall is to be. So far deposits are lower than this time last year, but they typically only receive about 1/3 of their total deposits by February anyways. So in short, I don’t really think anyone can say enrollment will be “significantly less” in the fall until a few more months.
Yes, the overall enrollment has been up, but this year’s freshman class (class of 2019) enrollment was lower than the class of 18. So this year’s application decline is actually following a trend that was started last year. I’m sure that the fall’s events had an impact, of course. But I do think there are other reasons; Mizzou has had increased competition between other SEC schools when it’s come to applications.
Thirdly, I don’t really think the school is trying to blame the media. They’re just saying that unless you’re actually here on campus, people don’t know exactly what’s going on. Which is true, there were a lot of media outlets that didn’t give a full context of the events and portrayed the university as if it was falling apart. It’s classic parachute journalism, where reporters show up amidst of a bunch of events but don’t give context in their stories or take the time to understand everything that’s occurring.
Will our funding be cut? Not sure. There are a few lawmakers trying to keep that from happening, and a bunch who want to “punish us” by cutting funds. Meanwhile, Gov. Nixon proposed a 6% increase to state funding for higher education. We’ll have to see how that turns out.
She has been suspended by the Board of Curators, so I feel like it’s a bit of a moot point right now. However, I see you’re point, but at the same time, I (and many others) don’t feel it’s the legislature’s place to dictate who is fired. Just like they shouldn’t be trying to punish the school by cutting funds. That’s hurting a lot of students who had absolutely nothing to do with anything.
@CE527M First of all, let me say that I appreciate that you’re living through this now, while many of us are just watching it on TV or reading about it on some website. I really hope our SEC brethren can get control of the situation, before it does any more damage, in reputation as well as financially.
The administration has come out and said they are projecting a drop of 900 freshman (though it could change). That’s the “new” news.
And the Melissa Click story (and it’s impact Mizzou) seems like it will never end, even with her being suspended by the board.
I do not think Melissa Click should be convicted of a crime.
But she should be fired from the University of Missouri and shouldn’t ever be in a teaching role again. It is unconscionable that a professor would threaten and attempt to organize physical harassment and possibly violence against a student who was doing nothing except taking pictures in a public space. Colleges shouldn’t employ people who physically or sexually harass students, and certainly not when the harassment is caught on videotape.
Yes, the legislature shouldn’t be dictating who is hired or fired. That would encroach on academic freedom. The University should be able to reach the right decision here by itself. I hope that the University follows their disciplinary procedures to the letter in order to ensure that the firing sticks and that Click has no grounds for appeal. However, if the University willfully continues to employ a professor who was physically harassing a student, then I think the legislature should hold them to account in some fashion.
I also hope the legislature rethinks their plan to cut funding. It would just punish students who didn’t do anything.
Because of the nature of Click’s offense and because she is untenured, I do not think there are any academic freedom issues with the University firing her. However, the demand to create a 10% quota for black professors is a clear encroachment of academic freedom.
If you trust the article in the newspaper (always risky), the admissions director is currently projecting a 900 student decline in enrollment, not just 900 few applications.
Right, I read the Post-Dispatch article and see what they said the admissions director is saying, but I feel like they’re just basing the decreased enrollment number on the 900 fewer applications. Because the admissions office released a memo a few weeks ago regarding the drop in applications and said the following:
So I feel like for them to go from saying that to suddenly saying 900 fewer students in the fall is a big jump, and that maybe the Post-Dispatch misinterpreted what they meant. The campus media at Mizzou just did a few stories about it and reported from a spokesperson from the school that they can’t predict enrollment for the fall yet, either.
I’m not doubting that there will be a decreased enrollment next year; no doubt that there will be and no doubt that Concerned Student, Mellisa Click, etc. will play a large part in that cause. Just trying to get some facts straight because it seems like this is being skewed in a way that makes things at the university worse than they currently are. There are a lot of “ifs” right now and hypotheticals, but there really aren’t any certainties on either funding or enrollment for next year.
It’s hard to overstate how trivial the complaints of the 1950 group were and are. The university has an idea who drew the poop swastika, and the police report leaves one thinking a black student may have done so. The student body president claims to have been called a racial slur by people in a pickup while off campus, but he’s been caught in some tremendous lies. So this leaves only one real complaint, which certainly was an unacceptable act.
If the university had simply yanked the football scholarships of those students who refused to play, fired the scumbag coach, and paid whatever fine they had to pay, making it clear that they simply weren’t going to put up with any crap from anyone, the university would probably be flooded with applications. People are so sick of being told to grovel on demand.
As a Missouri resident, everything that happened there this fall really saddens me. It’s hard for me to reconcile the image of Mizzou that I have from growing up a sports fan and thinking that I would go there for my whole life. I’ve been there for school competitions, tour days, concerts - and at no point have I thought of it as a racist institution in dire need of reform. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have issues, but for them to reflect on the school the way that they have is the worst possible scenario.
I applied in October, and I was accepted. However, I have no desire to attend. The recent intolerance combined with their lack of decent merit scholarships (thank you state legislature!) have made it an easy decision. It’s a decision that I see my classmates making as well. Many people I know are choosing to enroll at Northwest Missouri State, UMKC, especially Truman State, or CC instead of going to Mizzou. Many parents express the opinion that they don’t want their kids going somewhere that is now known for its poor reputation in the media.
In attempting to solve some of the perceived problems at Mizzou, the student groups and to an extent, the media, have essentially tanked the school’s reputation - and their ability to attract and entice students to enroll.
I love in MO also have echo the previous poster’s concern. Earlier when my son considered a Journalism major, we told him it was a no-brainer to go to Mizzou. Now I am not so sure. Honestly, I am worried about the things you say, but also what if something else happens? What about his safety? I realize there are risks everywhere, but this one seems more real to me.
@CAMidwestMom I don’t believe your son will be “unsafe” at Mizzou. I don’t think it’s a safety risk. It’s more of a matter that the place is going to turn into a PC hellhole.
For example, The New York Times recently reported on a diversity seminar that new Mizzou students are required to take. The class is described as blunt conversations about race, but really it is a requirement that white students sit there while various black studies professors make outlandish racism claims. From the article: “Why, he had asked, does Maria Sharapova, a white Russian tennis player, earn nearly twice as much in endorsements as Serena Williams, an African-American with a much better win-loss record?”
When one student dared to point out that Sharapova was more attractive he was immediately batted down by the professor, “Maria is considered a beauty queen, but by what standards of beauty? Some people might just say, ‘Oh, well, she’s just prettier.’ Well, according to whom? This spells out how we see beauty in terms of race, this idea of femininity. Serena is often spoofed for her big butt. She’s seen as too muscular.”
Well, the fact is, Sarena Williams looks like a man. A lot of people think she has used male hormones. By almost anyone’s standards of beauty Sharapova is more attractive, but she is certainly more attractive to the people buying the products she endorses, which is all that matters. Oh, and of course none of these whiners and complainers bothered to bring up the fact that three of the top five sports endorement earners are black: Tiger Woods, LeBron James, and Kevin Durant. Oh, the racism of it all!
This stuff isn’t going to end. Current UM System President Michael Middleton conspired with the 1950 group to bring down Tim Wolfe so he could seize control of the university. Unless or until the legislature is able to gain control of the situation, Mizzou simply is not going to be a pleasant place for the next couple of years. But it’s not going to be “unsafe.”
However, when piled on top of festering discontent (on various issues) that had been building up over the previous few years, it blew up into something much larger than it would have if it were just by itself.
No party in this whole affair looks good. Perhaps that is why all of the parties seem to dislike the media.
Perhaps if he wants to get experience reporting under hostile conditions, it may be a good place to go to.
For what it’s worth, as a journalism student, there’s really no better place to be right now. I knew that working for campus media would give me good experience in general, but then the protests happened and I started reporting on what became national news. The aftermath of all of this has continued to allow me to cover big issues on campus. I don’t think any future employer of mine is going to look at my resume and penalize me for going to Mizzou; I’ve heard people of other majors say this, and maybe it’ll be true for other majors (I have no clue), but covering the breaking news of November gave me some really great experience.
If I were currently a prospective student, I would also be hesitant to attend after hearing about everything. But being on campus while everything occurred, I can say with certainty that I’m glad I’m here and I really wouldn’t deem the campus as unsafe by any means. The closest to unsafe it came was the week of the resignations of Wolfe and Loftin when there were a lot of supposed “threats” going around (which turned out to be pretty much nothing).
Well that’s one I haven’t heard before. Is this in reference to Wolfe’s email that was made public in which he said Middleton had a long-term relationship with Jonathan Butler, the CS1950 leader?
Thanks for your reply @CE527M It is good to hear from someone who is there now, especially in the J school. I really don’t like when people paint an entire school or community with a broad brush, but I also know it happens and don’t like the idea of my son saying he went to Mizzou and people thinking ‘racist.’ I know he isn’t and we have lots and lots of friends with kids there, all great people. I first toured Mizzou eight years ago with my older child and was so impressed. I agree that there could be a lot to be gained from the experience of covering news events when they happen!
**Protesters barge in on University of Missouri board meeting to demand prof’s reinstatement **
Video of C1950 latest protest and a report written by Mark Schierbecker, a senior at Mizzou, who made the original video that went viral, and filed an assault complaint against Click.
Interesting side note, Mizzou really does have an excellent school of journalism (and journalism students), much of it’s issues are being documented and shared in a way that gives the school much more national attention than typical. That’s likely one reason C1950 is so negative about the media (were as most protesters crave media attention), it’s not just the national media that’s aggressively covering them, but the Mizzou journalism students (dozens of them…).
I agree that a journalism degree from Mizzou is going to be a good one. Personally, I would not find the experience of reporting on all of the crap that is likely to go on for the next few years to be worth having to live through it, but it would indeed be good reporting experience.
I used to be in the newspaper business and had the pleasure of meeting and having a drink with Daryl Moen at an SND convention. Of course, I couldn’t help but blurt out, “You wrote my textbook!” If you are not a student member of SND you should join and plan on attending their next convention, which in the olden days was in October. This doesn’t apply if you don’t care about design, of course, but in the era of pagination you will likely find yourself working at a job where you will write, assign stories, edit stories, adjust photos, and layout pages. Anyway, you will enjoy the SND convention, and I’m sure some other Mizzou students will go. Their workshops can be quite good as well.
@ucbalumnus There is “festering discontent” everywhere. Part of the Mizzou unrest was instigated by Ferguson activists. Mizzou has had a reputation as being a fairly liberal place, certainly for its geographical location. For Mizzou to have been singled out in this way brings to mind the saying, “Let no good deed go unpunished.”
If you look at the various videos that have been produced by the 1950 group, one big complaint is that Mizzou is “overwhelmingly white.” But so is Missouri. I suspect many of these black students are coming from all- or mostly black high schools, so I do recognize there is a culture shock factor. The fact is that blacks are just barely underrepresented at Mizzou. And all of these demands to increase black enrollment are really quite difficult when you consider the fact that only 12 percent of black high school students achieve three or more academic benchmarks on the ACT, versus 50 percent of whites. From there it is a pure numbers game, because the fewer benchmarks students meet, the less likely they are to graduate from college.