Birmingham Southerm - Financial Aid problems

[Tacttm1]

Not sure where to post this.  Thought it would be of interest.

http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2010/06/financial_aid_error_costs_birm.html

[Ron Boerger]

Update - pay cuts, furloughs, layoffs, and program cancellations impacting 10-15% of the student population:

The economy and irregularities discovered last spring continue to hit Birmingham-Southern hard.  Surprisingly, given the scope of the announcement, no impact to athletics:



During the past two weeks, Birmingham-Southern has moved forward with some decisions directly tied to addressing the college's finances. The first phase of the long-term plan to address the financial shortfall discovered this spring and to counter the continuing effects of the current economic downturn was announced last week. This included a reduction in force of staff members, as well as salary and benefit cuts for the remaining faculty and staff that will save approximately $6 million this fiscal year.

[...]

The decisions on changes to academic programs and personnel have now been made, and the college will be implementing the following:

· Phasing out five majors: Accounting, Computer Science, Dance, French, and German, effective with the 2011-12 academic year;

· Modification of our Music Program, effective with the 2011-12 academic year; and

· Reduction of 12 faculty positions, effective with the 2010-11 academic year, and 17 faculty positions, effective with the 2011-12 academic year.

[...]

These academic program changes will provide nearly $3 million in budget relief over the next two years and will directly affect only about 10 percent of the overall student body.

[...]



Very surprising to see programs like accounting and computer science get eliminated in this day and age.   This comes on top of an a recent announcement of a 10% pay cut, two-week furloughs, and elimination of a total of 65 staff position, including layoffs of 51.  

[Ron Boerger]

Ralph Turner posted a link to the DOE's site which contains info on athletic spending, which can be found at http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/.  Looking at the data for 2008, here are the top 10 football-playing D3 schools in terms of overall athletic spending:

Birmingham Southern College   AL   9056034
Christopher Newport University   VA   8085563
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute   NY   7053296
St Lawrence University   NY   6792453
Colorado College   CO   6716432
Ithaca College   NY   5091956
Union College   NY   5006609
Middlebury College   VT   4926939
Williams College   MA   4891702
University of Rochester   NY   4843064

I know that BSC has some expenses relating to the scholarships for those few kids who stuck with the program a couple of years after they started making the transition to D3, but even so these numbers look very high.  If your school has budget problems and is spending nearly 3x the next conference competitor (Sewanee, $3.6M, Trinity, $3.1M, DePauw, $3.0M) then perhaps you *should* be looking to cut costs here.   In 2007, BSC was third overall with $6.3M; in 2006, #1 at just over $8M.  One would expect legacy scholarship-related costs to be coming down from 2006 to 2008.  

BSC is also #1 overall in football spending, at $1.1M in 2008 the only D3 school in the country over $1M.  UMHB comes in around $975K, the #3 school is around $600K (and it's not Mount Union, or anyone else competitive on the national scene).  

RPI and Colorado College have D1 ice hockey (men) and a corresponding D1 women's sport to account for some of their expenses.   In CC's case, that's over $3M, putting their overall "D3 cost" around Sewanee's.  

[Ralph Turner]

When did BSC raise money for and spend it on the new athletics complex/football field?  FY 2008?  I believe that most schools are already into FY2011?

If that field  is "booked" in that year, then that expense would fall into the first year that the transition to D-III is occurring.

[Ron Boerger]

When did BSC raise money for and spend it on the new athletics complex/football field?  FY 2008?  I believe that most schools are already into FY2011?

If that field  is "booked" in that year, then that expense would fall into the first year that the transition to D-III is occurring.

The 2008 reporting period actually reflects the 08-09 school year, but your point is a good one.    We'd need to see "09" (last school year) to see if the spending continued at such a high level.   Expenses included $1.7M in "Athletically Related Student Aid" (athletic scholarships) which should rapidly dwindle to 0.