I am an alum of Maryville College, an old liberal arts school in East Tennessee. Enrollment and money are constant challenges. I am linking to a report by MC of how the admissions people and the rest of the school have worked successfully to grow and avoid for now at least the disasters this conversation has featured lately. https://www.maryvillecollege.edu/news/2024/maryville-college-admissions-looks-ahead-to-another-banner-year/

That's good news Scottie. From what I've read it looks like MC has a plan and is doing the right things to address a very stressful national situation. The only caveat I have is reading between the lines.

When someone says enrollment is "up 10% from pre-pandemic levels". That could be good or bad. What if the pre-pandemic level they are indexing is the year 2019 and that was down 30% over the previous 3 years? You just need to know the true comparison when people play with statistics.

"Second largest class in recent years". What if by recent years they mean last year and this year? Second place would also be last place.

I remember years ago being in a CNU Education Foundation meeting and the president mentioned that the Commonwealth of Virginia had provided "no new money" to CNU. It made it sound like CNU wasn't getting any money at all. The fact was that CNU was getting the same funding for the same programs etc....status quo.

But I think you have good reason to be optimistic. MC is aggressively tackling the issues and it appears they  could very well be positioning themselves for a bright future! Keep us posted.

My understanding from actual humans is that next year's incoming enrollment will be down a little from last year's, which was the largest in a decade. Given the situation, it looks like they made some good moves early on.

A big part of the story is heavy enrollment of D3 athletes and quite a lot of success of teams

I don't follow MC as much as I used to when you were in the same conference as CNU. But it does seem from what little I see, that MC is stepping up in athletics. That always makes things "funner". Do you know where you ended up in the Learfield standings?

Quote from: CNU85 on July 02, 2024, 04:50:53 PMI don't follow MC as much as I used to when you were in the same conference as CNU. But it does seem from what little I see, that MC is stepping up in athletics. That always makes things "funner". Do you know where you ended up in the Learfield standings?

14th.

https://nacda.com/documents/2024/6/9/23.24DIII_FinalOverallStandings.pdf

Quote from: Ron Boerger on July 02, 2024, 05:16:53 PM

Quote from: CNU85 on July 02, 2024, 04:50:53 PMI don't follow MC as much as I used to when you were in the same conference as CNU. But it does seem from what little I see, that MC is stepping up in athletics. That always makes things "funner". Do you know where you ended up in the Learfield standings?

14th.

https://nacda.com/documents/2024/6/9/23.24DIII_FinalOverallStandings.pdf

Maryville finished 169th. CNU finished 14th. Just to clarify.

Oops, thanks.

Wanted to weigh in on this topic in general, as a lot of excellent points have been made.

Re: The value of adding sports. Not, in my opinion, great if you're on the throes of death, but useful if you think it's a short rough patch. The enrollment boost isn't just active roster student-athletes. There are lots who get cut or decide not to play but remain at the college. I remember one of Dan Swanstrom's first QB recruits at IC was a kid from Florida who never played, left the team after a year, and graduated anyway. Retention and grad rates tend to be higher for student-athletes, and those rates being higher are good for the bottom line but also perception.

Also, student-athletes tend to be big donors after becoming alumni. IC athletics is always the big winner on Giving Day, by a healthy margin. Yes, it's typically money only for athletics, but if that means athletics is less dependent on other funding, it's money that can be used elsewhere.

2. Re: Philanthropy in general: Someone who has worked in higher ed for decades told me that whenever you're talking about big time financial campaigns, be it a capital campaign or a "Save Our School" type scenario, you need to have at least 50% of the money secured by the time you make the announcement. That's the big-money donations from your whales and board. You're not going to piecemeal your way with $25 checks from, for lack of a better word, rank and file alumni.

All good points IC. I totally agree.

I do know that different institutions have different % they want to have in the purse before exiting the "silent phase" and going public with the campaign. A few years ago CNU had their first ever major campaign and it generated about $65 million. I know that we had reached nearly 70% before going public with the campaign. And the announced goal was lower than the final tally. All necessary psychological mind games in the world of advancement. The good ones have it down to a science.

CNU is most likely about to embark on another campaign now that the new president has been on board for a year and is about to release the new Strategic Compass. The new guy and his wife have a mantra of "all in" and they are indeed all in.  The previous CNU president, former US Senator Trible is really the "Father" of the CNU we all know today. He totally changed the University. Almost $1.5 Billion in infrastructure, increased the image of the University, and really set a high bar for CNU. His vision was remarkable. It is rare when a president retires who had a long tenure and was transformative to be replaced by someone who will be able to take it up a notch. I truly believe CNU has found the guy to do that. Retired USCG Admiral Kelly will be extremely successful, in my opinion.

Quote from: Kuiper on July 01, 2024, 03:34:23 PM

Quote from: Ron Boerger on July 01, 2024, 03:23:15 PMClark Summit University of the United East Conference is the latest to pull up stakes and call it quits, shutting down immediately.  Teach-out plans are in place for either fellow UEC member Cairn or D1 Liberty, both of whom will "accept all credits earned at CSU (with some conditions)".  The teach-out plan applies only to students who were already enrolled; those who initially enrolled for the fall semester are on their own, to the point that they will only receive refunds of their deposits "[a]s property and assets are sold [...] proceeds [...] will be distributed to creditors like you in the legally prescribed order [...] {i}f sufficient funds are available".

The Department of Education College Scorecard pegged undergraduate attendance at 376.  The school had been placed in non-compliance probation last November by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, who rejected the school's teach-out plan on May 20th of this year.

The school's last available 990, for the year ending May 2023, showed miniscule net assets of $3.3 million after the school lost nearly $1.9 million in the tax year. 

In what now appears to be an obituary for the institution, @SimpleCoach of the All Things DIII Soccer podcast just posted a Fields of Dreams segment with video of his visit to the Clark Summit campus a few days ago.  Beautiful views on that campus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFGkwAeY-go
 

 I played on this campus as a teenager when visiting a best friend who moved to this neighborhood in the late '50s. At that time, it was Venard Seminary for the Roman Catholic Maryknoll Fathers. Years later, Clarks Summit U acquired the property.

Quote from: CNU85 on July 03, 2024, 08:12:22 AMAll good points IC. I totally agree.

I do know that different institutions have different % they want to have in the purse before exiting the "silent phase" and going public with the campaign. A few years ago CNU had their first ever major campaign and it generated about $65 million. I know that we had reached nearly 70% before going public with the campaign. And the announced goal was lower than the final tally. All necessary psychological mind games in the world of advancement. The good ones have it down to a science.

CNU is most likely about to embark on another campaign now that the new president has been on board for a year and is about to release the new Strategic Compass. The new guy and his wife have a mantra of "all in" and they are indeed all in.  The previous CNU president, former US Senator Trible is really the "Father" of the CNU we all know today. He totally changed the University. Almost $1.5 Billion in infrastructure, increased the image of the University, and really set a high bar for CNU. His vision was remarkable. It is rare when a president retires who had a long tenure and was transformative to be replaced by someone who will be able to take it up a notch. I truly believe CNU has found the guy to do that. Retired USCG Admiral Kelly will be extremely successful, in my opinion.

I really like the second half of this post (it's all good, but this second part especially). Look, the numbers aren't changing, and some schools simply will not survive. But if you want to, you have to have a vision in mind, and it's going to require some big swings. In the same way you can't raise 65 million with 25 dollar donations, you can't transform a college or university merely by dropping a few low enrollment majors and adding wrestling. You have to demonstrably level up your institution if you want to come out of these next 10-15 years,

If I had the infinite money glitch, there are several things I'd do at IC. Bringing back men's ice hockey and adding women's would be one of them (eventually), but the others would be major transformational infrastructure upgrades.

I'm not sure how much "level up" you need.  A small liberal arts school just needs to find their niche and do it well.  Streamlining majors can help - but most schools came out of covid in an emergency "whoever we can get on campus" mindset for recruiting (as evidenced by the absolute onslaught of small NE colleges banging down the doors of every ENC student right now) - that's what won't fly.  State schools will almost always be a better option for kids who just want to go somewhere.

The problem small schools have is the margin for error.  A 5-10% enrollment drop can be catastrophic for the budget and ultimately unrecoverable.

Maybe that's what you mean by "level up?"  Either an endowment that can weather a rough year or a reputation that keeps the applications coming in.

Quote from: Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) on July 03, 2024, 01:24:25 PM\
The problem small schools have is the margin for error.  A 5-10% enrollment drop can be catastrophic for the budget and ultimately unrecoverable.

Maybe that's what you mean by "level up?"  Either an endowment that can weather a rough year or a reputation that keeps the applications coming in.

It's not going to be a rough year. It's going to be a rough decade at least. Birth rates have long been in decline, and there are simply not going to be as many college-age students in the pipeline.

https://www.axios.com/2023/10/04/birth-rate-fertility-rate-decline-data-statistics-graph-2022

Resting on your reputation is just not going to do it for these small, liberal arts colleges who live on the margin. The pie is going to be smaller, so if your piece of it stays the same, proportionately, it's going to be smaller in absolute terms.

Endowments aren't a panacea either. So much of what's given is restricted — at recently closed Wells, it was about 85% — that when you get into the weeds, you're not going to be able to dip into it for general needs. There's so much cynicism around higher ed spending (some of it justified) but at the end of the day, too many people just donate to their niche thing which leaves the big things — say, upgrading and maintaining dorms/general campus facilities — critically underfunded.

An article published today by The Chronicle of HE (based on a link from the Philadelphia Inquirer) reported that 10 prominent Pennsylvania liberal arts colleges are going to explore ways to collaborate to save money and improve academic programs. They have an $800,000 grant from the Andrew Mellon Foundation. 

Last year a group of private colleges in the I-79 corridor (including W&J) explored joining together to set up an entity to perform some common back-office functions.  That failed to materialize, but I thought it was a great concept and was disappointed when it fell apart.

I give this new plan a much higher probability of success for two reasons, first they have $800,000, and second the schools have much more in common than the I-79 group. 

The participating schools are Bryn Mawr, Dickinson, Franklin & Marshall, Gettysburg, Haverford, Junita, Muhlenberg, Swarthmore, and Washington & Jefferson