Bad news coming from a place close to us. Wittenberg U. is projecting a 7 million dollar cut. Their computer science group on Facebook estimates that 50 to 60 percent of the faculty will be fired in the next three years. I expect a lot of bad news coming soon from universities/colleges between Dayton and Columbus. I am slightly optimistic about Miami, but no official numbers yet.
I think this is going to continue to impact traditional, non-elite liberal arts colleges that cost as much or nearly as much as elite colleges. While all universities - including Miami - will face challenges as Americaās supply of potential students continues to shrink, well-positioned, state-assisted universities with solid academic reputations like Miami will continue to thrive.
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Yet administration gives themselves raises and hires more six-figure people who donāt teach students or conduct research
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The ābloatā on the Administrative side of colleges and universities is coming home to roost. Even going on at Miami.
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Straight up, no aid:
$58K to go to Wittenberg with tuition, room/board and fees.
Miami in-state at $35K.
$92K savings over 4 years,
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The ābloatā is disgusting. A lot of it is brought on by new government regulations (federal or state) but a lot of it is because other schools are doing it, why not ours?
Cause families are gonna get pissed sending their kids to schools that promise small class sizes but in reality not until their senior year
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Wouldnāt hurt if the state would cap OSUās freshman classes and free up a thousand or two well qualified kids for the rest of the system every year. Iām not sure what OSU would want in exchange though.
I am on the Board of Trustees at Wilmington College. We just approved a balanced budget for the coming fiscal year. It can be done if a school is willing to think out of the box.
WC is a Quaker liberal arts school. We also just got a full āinstitution of excellenceā 10-year accreditation from the accreditation group that Miami uses.
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Recruiting freshmen to your school is like playing a sport. Everyone is on offense to get the best freshmen class possible. In Ohio Stateās case, they have the physical living space and the sport that drives a lot of those kids to choose their school and be part of Saturday game days. Academically and business/professional/research connection wise, they have fantastic connections to a lot of areas that many schools donāt.
The schools going against Ohio State for these same freshmen are playing offense, but more defense, in recruiting and keeping these same students. Itās like what Bobby Bowden told Lou Holtz when West Virginia pounded William & Mary. āItās not my job to stop my offense (in this case Ohio State), itās your defenseās job to stop āem.ā Said defense is the other school(s), not named Ohio State, keeping after said freshmen and stopping those students from going to Ohio State
But how? You donāt do so by firing the folks who teach and conduct research with the students and replacing them with people who arenāt in a classroom or lab. I can wager that most people on this board didnāt choose Miami because of who the University President, Provost, and other administrators were at their time of application and enrollment.
Kentucky Gentleman may very well be the most interesting man in the world or at least on this board.
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Thereās administrative bloat which is a serious issue. In Ohio, thereās also a huge amount of academic bloat thatās been going on for decades because state schools feel that if Ohio State has it then they should too. I would bet at least half the doctoral programs in Ohio donāt crack the top 100 in any rankings or evaluations and could be eliminated with no effect on the primary mission of the schools.
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No one at Wittenberg is paying sticker, which is part of their problem on the enrollment side. Like 15 years ago (or more), Muskingum cut its tuition by like 30%, which was the average grant (not loan, grant) students got from the school when they attended. Turns out you can attract more people if the sticker price represents what you actually pay, rather than some unaffordable number that shocks you but will be discounted.
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Interesting how this article describes serious cuts to faculty but nothing about cuts to administrators.
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Congrats!
Why would you fire yourself?
The greatest thing Dr Phil Shriver did was teach his History of Miami class when he was president and then continue to teach it after he retired. It kept him in touch with the students and what the atmosphere was really like on campus.
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That is an interesting point. The counterpoint is that lowering tuition may provide all kinds of wrong signals, such as indicating that the university is in financial trouble or that the quality is decreasing. This is one of the reasons why virtually all academic institutions keep the price intact and prefer to offer discounts instead.
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Hamiltonās sticker price was $58 k when my kid attended between 2012-2016. They gave us $39 k in aid annually.
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You wonder how much of this is marketing:
Hey, we have a super-pricy elite education, but we are so generous as a college ā and YOU are such a desirable candidate ā weāre willing to cut our rates JUST FOR YOU!
I remember reading a funny comic strip when I was at Miami. Family business, an old man and his two sons, are trying to figure out a business strategy:
Son #1: What we need to do to get customers is to cut prices in half!
Son #2: No! What we need to do is increase our revenue by doubling our prices!
Old Man: Boys! Boys! Youāre BOTH right!
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I donāt think that internal competition within a stateās public university system should be free wheeling and unchecked. Thatās what has led to the academic bloat and redundancies that I mentioned above.
Ohio Stateās freshman classes, even with a 50% rejection rate, are at around 8K right now. Given Ohioās demographics, I think some arrangement could be reached where they cap them at around 6500, and it could be a win-win. They increase their rankings and reputation. The rest of the system has a bunchāsay half the 1500 that would now be rejectedāending up at other public schools. Theyād be well qualified kids who would undoubtedly be competitive academically at other schools. The sticking issue to me though is money. The kids theyād now start rejecting would obviously be at the bottom of their applicant pool and arenāt soaking up any merit aid, how do you compensate them for that?
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But I think any parent or high school counselor could look at Ohio private colleges not named Kenyon or Oberlin and realize that itās far from a super selective, elite education. I know that there are some kids from very affluent backgrounds that just canāt ever lower themselves to the level of going to a public university, but I think that crowd is nowhere near large enough to fund all these good but far from elite private liberal arts colleges in Ohio.
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