I think for ice hockey 20 is the number of players who are permitted to dress for a game.  Most rosters, then, are at least 25, maybe all the way to 30.  This helps when injuries occur.  Not that this slightly higher number helps all that much to negate your well-reasoned point.   And you have not included the expense of leasing a rink.  I doubt if Hiram can afford to build a facility to support the team.  Will they have to travel some distance to practice and play? (Perhaps someone knows of a nearby ice surface that the Terriers could use.) I am not aware if DIII programs also have a JV schedule.  With the travel and all, I fail to see how the only program in Ohio could easily justify two hockey teams or if other schools even play a JV schedule.    I'm thinking Hiram did not make these additions without working through the financial consequences.  Perhaps someone can enlighten us.
EDIT:  I am sure Hiram researched the advantages of adding ice hockey.  This said, I wonder if they considered wrestling.  Currently, 84 DIII schools sponsor ice hockey programs; 124 sponsor wrestling, with a number of programs in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.  Would not expenses have been lower?  Maybe I'm missing some generous donor(s) who  is/are behind the addition.     

Quote from: sigma one on June 10, 2024, 07:38:38 AMI think for ice hockey 20 is the number of players who are permitted to dress for a game.  Most rosters, then, are at least 25, maybe all the way to 30.  This helps when injuries occur.  Not that this slightly higher number helps all that much to negate your well-reasoned point.   And you have not included the expense of leasing a rink.  I doubt if Hiram can afford to build a facility to support the team.  Will they have to travel some distance to practice and play? (Perhaps someone knows of a nearby ice surface that the Terriers could use.) I am not aware if DIII programs also have a JV schedule.  With the travel and all, I fail to see how the only program in Ohio could easily justify two hockey teams or if other schools even play a JV schedule.    I'm thinking Hiram did not make these additions without working through the financial consequences.  Perhaps someone can enlighten us.
EDIT:  I am sure Hiram researched the advantages of adding ice hockey.  This said, I wonder if they considered wrestling.  Currently, 84 DIII schools sponsor ice hockey programs; 124 sponsor wrestling, with a number of programs in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.  Would not expenses have been lower?  Maybe I'm missing some generous donor(s) who  is/are behind the addition.     

They did announce the rink they were playing at. I didn't check how far from the school it is located, but I'd assume rink rental is included in the very stale NCAA numbers I quoted for cost of the program. Regardless, I think it's as much about being the only D3 ice hockey team in Ohio as the hook. The numbers do look better at 30 players. An extra 10 students is another 200-250K. The expenses for coaches, rinks, and transportation are more or less fixed. Variable for equipment and meals for travel a bit. Anyway, most of that extra 200-250K is going to be "profit", less what it costs to house and educate of course.

A good friend coaches Denison's club hockey team. The have been considering becoming varsity.

Clarks Summit furloughs ALL employees, but insists it is not closing

QuoteFinancially struggling Clarks Summit University, formerly Baptist Bible College, temporarily furloughed all employees to help close a budget gap, university President James Lytle announced Wednesday.

The move comes after the small private university held its 92nd commencement on May 11, the institution's accreditor on May 20 rejected a "teach out" plan for undergraduates to be able to complete their education elsewhere, if necessary, and the college ended its fiscal year May 31 facing an unspecified "significant fundraising gap."

The university is not closing and is planning for a 2024-25 academic year, according to Lytle's announcement posted on the college's website.

"We are in the midst of another challenge. This one is financial. Many have responded to our fundraising campaign in the last few weeks. Friends who share our Christ-centered mission have given generously toward our fiscal year-end fundraising need. While progress is being made, a significant financial gap remains," according to Lytle's statement. "To cover the gap, we're following legal advice to put us in the best place moving forward. We have a trusted partner to lead us through the process. However, this recommended action mandates furlough for CSU employees while the process takes place."

The administration — president and cabinet members —  have committed to volunteer without pay during the furlough.

Erika Bruckner, the university's director of communications, said all employees are furloughed, but she did not immediately know the number, and it's unclear how long the furloughs might last.

Here is another addition aimed in part at gender equity and of course recruiting. Innovation in ways I did not know exist and hope they really do!

https://mcscots.com/news/2024/6/11/stunt-king-named-first-stunt-head-coach.aspx

Interesting. I live right around the corner from Maryville College. Maybe I'll check it out in '26.

Lynchburg cutting 17 programs, dozens of faculty and staff

QuoteThe University of Lynchburg announced Thursday it will eliminate 12 undergraduate and five graduate programs, phasing them out over the next few years as students complete those programs. The announcement is the private university's latest move to cut costs at a time when small colleges are in intense competition to attract new students.

QuoteThe University of Lynchburg accepted 96% of applications submitted for fall 2022, though only about 13% of those students who were admitted decided to enroll, according to National Center for Education Statistics data.

QuoteThough some faculty and staff might stay on at the university in a different capacity, the position cuts likely will reduce the number of employees by approximately 12.5%.

How Lesley Descended into Crisis

QuoteWhen Janet L. Steinmayer was appointed president of Lesley University in 2019, she took the helm of a small liberal arts institution facing declining student enrollment, a $10 million budget deficit, and its fourth president in three years.

Steinmayer was tasked with consolidating academic programs, reducing the budget deficit, and increasing enrollment on the eve of the pandemic and at a time when small colleges across the Northeast were already struggling with a decrease in applicants.

Nearly five years later and 15 months into Steinmayer's "Better Lesley" plan, low-enrollment programs have been cut, a $100 million campus renovation plan to consolidate and sell unused buildings is underway, and the university is on a plan to reach financial equilibrium by the 2026 fiscal year.

But in the process, the university has laid off nearly 20 percent of core faculty members, cut most of its social science programs, and seen enrollment drop by an additional 45 percent since 2019 — all while remaining more than $100 million in debt.

Now, faculty and students have revolted, saying in interviews and in three faculty votes of no confidence that Steinmayer is not the right person to lead the university through a time of peril.

Alverno (women's college in WI with around 1700 total students roughly split between undergrad and graduate) declares financial exigency, cuts majors from 43 to 29, grad programs from 25 to 19, will "reduce" 25 FT faculty and 12 staff positions, usual other restructuring and cost-cutting efforts.  Move comes after the school lost money four of five years.  This year's projected deficit was over $9 million compared to previous deficits ranging from $1.8-$3.7 million. 

The school will also cancel its track and field program, which listed six members in the year recently concluded.  The program had been added the previous season in an apparent attempt to grow enrollment. 

As of their most recent audit ending June 30, 2022, the school had roughly $105M in assets (mostly investments [$56M] and plant/property [$38M]) and $27M in liabilities.

Here's an article about Pittsburgh colleges that is both factual about the demographic issues facing schools, but also optimistic in that it highlights the ways schools are trying to grapple with those issues.     

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/education/2024/06/16/pittsburgh-colleges-enrollment-decline/stories/202406100087

QuoteThe Post-Gazette spoke with college leaders at six private, regional schools — Seton Hill University, Point Park University, Washington & Jefferson College, Geneva College, Carlow University and Chatham University — about unique ways that they're preparing for the cliff.

With the exception of Chatham, all of these colleges enrolled fewer students in fall 2022 than they did a decade earlier in fall 2013 [Kuiper note:  That's because Chatham went co-ed in 2015]. Enrollment declines have delivered blows to private colleges, as well as other regional institutions like Pennsylvania's state-owned universities and the Penn State branch campuses.

Despite the bleak projections, most of the school leaders interviewed were optimistic that they will face the cliff head-on and bring more students to their campuses.

I'm dubious of most of the "solutions."  The school leaders are all optimistic because the minute they express pessimism, their school will begin its death spiral, not because they have the secret sauce.

One of the strategies is expanding their recruitment footprint to neighboring states, but those other states are also experiencing the demographic cliff and the schools in those regions are also trying to recruit from elsewhere.

QuoteThere simply aren't enough high school students in the Pittsburgh region for local colleges to maintain steady enrollments, believes Marlin Collingwood, Point Park's vice president of enrollment management and marketing.

That's why the Downtown college is casting a wider net to recruit new students.

In the past, Point Park would recruit within a 2.5-hour radius of Pittsburgh. Now, the university has expanded that radius to include Eastern Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, the Columbus, Ohio, area and western New York.

"Expanding our footprint has been really important," Mr. Collingwood said.

Branching out beyond Pennsylvania could be vital as the Keystone State has seen its own diminishing fertility rate in the past 15 years. Between 2008 and 2023, the state's K-12 public schools saw a 5.6% drop in enrollment — a loss of more than 100,000 students.

Point Park hopes to grow its enrollment as much as 30% by 2030, in part by widening recruitment boundaries.

W&J also recently received a $50,000,000 gift to fund scholarships to students from the Washington County area, and established a BSN program with Washington Hospital (soon to be part of the UPMC) school of Nursing which will take advantage of W&J's strong science programs.

There was also an initiative a few months ago where a group of colleges in Western Pa were considering setting up an entity that would consolidate "back office" functions which seems to be a great cost savings opportunity, but that faded away.

Here are a few DIII schools sounding the alarms about possible enrollment declines that they are blaming on the FAFSA rollout

Beloit

QuoteLike all institutions of higher education in the United States, Beloit College is bracing for a possible marked decline in incoming freshman this fall because of the botched rollout of a new federal financial aid application.

QuoteMany are comparing the potential decline to 2020-2021 when enrollments nationally fell 13% because of the COVID pandemic. Colleges nationally still haven't gotten back to pre-COVID levels.

Schedin said financially the FAFSA debacle could be worse for colleges than the COVID-19 pandemic.

Baldwin Wallace

QuoteBaldwin Wallace University administrators pushed back the day new students have to send a deposit to hold their place at the school from May 1 to June 15. Even that's not a hard-and-fast deadline, according to vice president Schulz.

The number of submitted deposits is down, though officials declined to say by how many. Schulz did say BW's "pretty well caught up" with aid offers. The university has sent out about 2,000 offers to both admitted and current students.

Emerson saw a significant decline in enrollment (FAFSA, student protests identified as contributing causes) and will cut faculty and staff and limit hiring.  Here's the first paragraph of an email sent to faculty and staff (no doubt the rest will come out somewhere soon).

On the other hand . . . .

Illinois Wesleyan adding three majors.

https://pantagraph.com/news/local/education/illinois-wesleyan-university-adding-3-new-majors-this-fall/article_30e3c436-2db4-11ef-a1f5-2f1b1753e5e7.html