St. Joseph's College (IN) to Suspend Operations

[smedindy]

Not Division III, but strikes at the financial realities of colleges and universities with financial issues:

http://www.jconline.com/story/news/college/2017/02/03/saint-josephs-college-suspend-operations/97446416/

They're Division II, but some D-3 programs around the area could get their transfers.

From reading this, I wonder, as a person who has spent a lot of time in higher-ed fundraising, how it could have gotten to this without a quiet fundraising effort? The article also has a laundry list of issues regarding accreditation, which seems to come from an overall lack of resources and attention to detail.

[Ron Boerger]

Yeah, you don't get to the "we need $20 million to stay alive this year, $100 million to keep going after that" point without some serious failures.

[Ralph Turner]

(Dead url removed)

900 students...

[smedindy]

Wabash has announced that they will make things easy for St. Joseph's students to transfer there.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Yeah, you don't get to the "we need $20 million to stay alive this year, $100 million to keep going after that" point without some serious failures.

I wonder how they did with communication.  My alma mater has had some rough patches - not like this, but serious - sometimes they don't mention a word of it and other times they say "here's the challenge; here's how we'll meet it."  I certainly prefer the latter to the former - at least the alumni base is aware of what's going on.

We're in a reality now where lots of small schools will have to shut down - tuition-based institutions are just not all going to be able to survive.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

I am not an Alum of my sons school, but a week does not go by when they are not calling/emailing/other type of fundraising. I can only imagine the communication my son is getting. Unlike sports the seson seems to be all year round for fundraising. 

[smedindy]

Oh, it is. Give and they stop until the next fiscal year (or if they have a special project or second ask if you gave early).

Real development officers and annual fund staff ask, because you don't get if you don't ask.

I still can't wrap my head around the dollar figures that popped into the public sphere. $100 million is probably more than what a capital campaign for them could raise, unless they have a couple of Pennypackers and Vandalays hanging around.

[Ron Boerger]

Oh, it is. Give and they stop until the next fiscal year (or if they have a special project or second ask if you gave early).

Real development officers and annual fund staff ask, because you don't get if you don't ask.

I still can't wrap my head around the dollar figures that popped into the public sphere. $100 million is probably more than what a capital campaign for them could raise, unless they have a couple of Pennypackers and Vandalays hanging around.

Agree, but had they not waited until it was too late they wouldn't have been in the position to need that much money.

I see similar situations in the classical music world, another part of the non-profit world with very high fixed labor costs that require either very large endowments (because low-risk returns are so low) and/or constant fundraising.   You have ensembles that are very successful because their boards are very active and reach donors, and groups that flail because their boards either don't do a good job or actively want to change the model by reducing the pay/number of services/etc. and in the process give the public the appearance of wanting to sabotage the ensemble.   Donations dry up as a result (imagine that) and if the groups are lucky the board ends up getting overhauled before things go totally in the toilet.