Comments on: Colleges are now closing at a pace of one a week. What happens to the students?

By: Barrington McLean

Barrington McLean — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 15:32:03 +0000

I retired two years ago, after 30 years working on a college campus in the mid west. It is sad to see so many campuses closing, but it is important to note that their demise never, ever happened overnight. Every last one of them that I have read about, saw it, or should have seen it coming years before it happened. As I have observed, the hard decisions to save them were almost never made until their backs were up against the wall. At that point it was almost always too late. Some minor decisions (MINOR DECISIONS) that could have started years ago and started saving monies include some of these VP positions. Unless it is a large institution, did they really need a VP of Enrollment Management and VP of DEI? Could these not be coordinator positions that report to a VP? Did a college with less than 2,000 students need a VP, Assistant VP, or could if have been a VP then a Director ? The administrative staff keeps growing, but…. Could they have slowly dropped a major here and there that was not too popular and expand those majors that are popular -like, say nursing? Could they have launched a capital campaign years earlier including finding a way to increase alumni giving? Could they have dropped one or two of their athletic programs earlier? Here is the winner. Everyone states that the number of college age students is dwindling. Yes, this is true of the traditional age students, but not the non-traditional student population that they are not aggressively going after. In case no one noticed, there is a growing Latino population, and many of them are middle class, or their parents earn middle class salaries. This group is being overlooked -or they are doling out more monies than is necessary to attract them. I might also add that there is a growing Black middle class that is being overlooked. I am going to suggest that it is time for the faculty to accept that while they are in a system of shared governance, they do NOT run the institution. I have always respected their input in matters on campus( and their input really helps), but never understood why when a hard decision is, and had to be made for the best interest of the institution, they are up in arms and voting no confidence in the president. I was dumbfounded when this happened on my campus because, in order to close the budget gap, they eliminated the Physics department that had only 4 majors as well as the Physical Therapy department that was not attracting enough students, and those that came in were not graduating. It had more to do with changing demographics, and not for a lack of trying to recruit. Which was better -the survival of the school or keeping your colleagues employed (people with advanced degrees who could reasonably find employment elsewhere)? It is my observation that most (not all) these institutions that are now closing had to have seen it coming years ago, and might have slowly addressed the problem however the saw fit, without causing alarm, rumors and bad PR. It is also sadly an observation that some of these institutions in rural areas stood no chance.

By: Richard F Belloff

Richard F Belloff — Wed, 08 May 2024 12:25:05 +0000

I found this article puzzling. Businesses of all manner go out of existence everyday. Given the population dynamics at play in the US, there is clearly insufficient demand for all colleges to continue in their current state. What we are seeing is market adjustments. What does the author suggest be done as a matter of “public policy?”

The larger question is: Should we continue to urge every student to go to college? I would suggest, no, we should not.

By: Tena Hogan

Tena Hogan — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 19:30:29 +0000

No doubt this sentiment will sound callous, in the wake of these students grief & loss. But what happens to the community that has surrounded & built up around a college? And then too the vacant sprawling campus buildings, when so many people go without affordable housing, or unhoused entirely. It is a much larger systemic issue for us all…

By: John Reinemann

John Reinemann — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 17:00:13 +0000

In Wisconsin we have a state-designated entity that becomes the repository for transcripts of work done at shuttered colleges and universities. Some (very few) institutions’ records ended up at a different repository but there is also a state office who maintains a master list of where every college’s records are. That seems to me to be a step some other states may want to take. We’ll see more of this going forward, I am sure, although a certain number of potential closures will of course end up as mergers.

By: thomas lee

thomas lee — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 11:17:41 +0000

I must admit that having read this article as a retired college professor, my first reaction was to worry about the survival of colleges as institutions, along with their faculty. Now I am more concerned about the students who are being abandoned. There is certainly enough brain power in these institutions to foresee their financial future – adequate warnings need to be given to students, along with financial accommodations. Of course, this is all part of a broader crisis that I have seen coming for years – is the private college a sustainable model? I think not. It seems to me that one possibility, or perhaps necessity, is that colleges will need to move from a four year (expensive) residential requirement to a system that requires a one or two year campus residency with the rest becoming an online curriculum. Of course, that begs the question of maintaining faculty quality, given the vicious circle of fewer tenured positions available, leading to diminishing numbers of grad students. We are coming out of the “good old days” of college life to a very new and in many ways, a problematic future.