Future of Division III

[jknezek]

Personally I think it's a good idea. I always look at the "real cost" estimates and point my friends, who often have kids at the stage where they are looking, to those numbers. Because the sticker shock is insane. Even W&L's sticker is up over 60K. When I went, back in the dark ages of the late 90s, they were a "best value" institution. Now they look like anyone else. But, there are so many scholarships and aid packages that the 60K number is meaningless unless you are a wealthy person pushing your child into his/her reach school, or you are a foreigner. Those are the people that end up paying full price, but they are about the only ones.

All that being said, depending on what state you are in, it's not like state schools are much better. And since many state schools value out of state and out of country students more than in-state these days, failing their basic purpose in pursuit of money, average tuition at public universities is almost as outrageous.

Higher Education in this country needs a massive reset. It would be really bad for a lot of schools, and would cause a lot of pain and trauma to alumni and current students, but it needs to happen. It will be interesting to see if schools find ways to muddle through and just continue to exist on the edge, slowly dropping over the next 30 years, or if an actual hard reset and massive change occurs. I vote for ripping the bandage off, but I do acknowledge that I think my school is unlikely to be caught too badly, and that makes me less considerate of others than I probably should be.

[smedindy]

It depends on the state school, and the mission. At Central Washington, where I work at, in-state tuition is $7,231 (that includes border counties in Idaho and Oregon) - tuition for the WUE (Western Undergrad Exchange Program for those pursuing their first degree - which includes Guam, American Samoa, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, and Northern Marianas) is $10,847.

Pure out of state tuition is $25,340.

Fees are $2,186 and room and board is $16,480.

We try to get first generation and the underserved population as students. So we reach out to the farm worker and immigrant community, the less affluent suburbs, and the small towns around the state as much as the moneyed areas over in Seattle. That definitely isn't the mission at the University of Washington, or even Washington State (where they seem to play with apples more than anything)!

[Ron Boerger]

The president of The Catholic University of America recently announced a $30 million "structural deficit," and asked university personnel for ideas to generate revenue and cut costs in the coming year.

Unlike many colleges that have recently made similar announcements, Catholic seems to be on decent footing overall and has the resources to weather a short-term financial shortfall.  Quoting the president:

"The core of our financial challenge lies in the revenue we earn from tuition, which has declined by 24% since 2018," Kilpatrick wrote.

"During this same period, our costs have continued to rise, with instructional expenses increasing by 12% and student services by 53% (this latter number includes not only student life and athletics expenses, but also enrollment management, admissions, and marketing and communications)."

"Over the past decade, we have used financial reserves and special endowment draws to maintain operations as we saw our revenues decline and our expenses grow. These reserves are now depleted, and we can no longer rely on them or large special endowment draws to address our structural challenges," he said.

Further

"I want to emphasize that we have already identified potential solutions that could address approximately half of our target without severe impact to our core mission," he said.

"These include reducing our planned January 2025 salary increase pool from 4.0% to 2.5%, implementing a selective hiring freeze, and finding $8-9 million in non-personnel spending reductions."

The majority of Catholic students (around 3000 of 5000 in the '22-'23 school year) are enrolled in undergraduate programs.  Their annual enrollment target for undergraduate enrollment is 850-900 students. 

This comes a year and a half after the school completed a campaign that raised over $518 million; the funds raised seem somewhat focused on graduate programs ($110M for the school of nursing, $89M for a school of business, $83M for research, $49M for the law school, $30M for graduate scholarships).  In the most recent filings available (tax year ending April 2023) the school reported net assets of $651 million; $402 million in investments and $387M in plant and property.  The primary liability is $171M in bonds supporting recent construction at the school.   

[IC798891]

It's not a great sign that they're facing a $30 million deficit and looking for revenue generation ideas nearly immediately after completing a capital campaign.

It looks like the enrollment is trending back, but they're still 700 off from where they were. Ideally though, the money raised in that capital campaign will result in improvements that will positively impact applications and yield

[Ron Boerger]

Good points. I think the proof of the pudding for many schools with enrollment challenges will be to see what happens next year given last year's FAFSA disaster.

[TheChucker]

A story from Bloomberg (via Financial Advisor) detailing how some struggling colleges will "slash" tuition rates to make them more appealing to prospective students.  This general topic was touched on in the soccer boards recently; what schools are doing is to basically lock in the 50-60% average discount rates they have been offering via these cuts.  This isn't a risk-free strategy, as you lose those students who pay full rides, but according to the article less than a sixth "of students enrolled in private, nonprofit institutions paid the sticker price" and that was in 2019; today's rate is no doubt even lower (I today received something from my alma mater which stated 99% of students receive some sort of financial aid).  Student-athletes are among those willing to pay more than average, which is one reason so many schools reach out to them. 

Among D3 colleges mentioned are Bethel (MN), Wartburg (IA), Millikin (IL), and Bridgewater (VA), most of whom report success in attracting more students as a result of these reductions.  As the article notes, "[t]he jury is still out on whether tuition resets are winning tactics for less elite colleges in the longer term", but it seems to be a successful tactic for now.

Concordia University St. Paul slashed their tuition "sticker price" over a decade ago and has since grown enrollment by about 50% to over 5,500 now. Some of the increase was also probably from offering more relevant career-based and non-traditional student academic fields that might not fit in the typical old liberal arts model. I'm sure other schools are studying that success. 

[Ralph Turner]

The move away from classical liberal arts curricula is everywhere when you look for it. About 5 years ago, McMurry dismantled one of the finest Texas /southern history departments in the country. This included the McWhiney Group and much Texana that can now be found at the Texas Center at Schreiner led by Prof Donald Frazier.  (Frazier et al. created the FrontierTexas! museum in Abilene about 25+ years ago.)

https://schreiner.edu/news-renowned-texas-historian-to-lead-the-texas-center-at-schreiner-university/

[CNU85]

Some good news to share in the D3 world.

CNU Shatters Early Application Record

[jknezek]

Some good news to share in the D3 world.

CNU Shatters Early Application Record

The evidence points to state schools, especially mainstream state schools, being better positioned to survive the problems in higher education than private schools, so this doesn't really surprise me. The issue is value/result, and if the belief is that a) college is still worthwhile but b) it's too expensive and c) liberal arts isn't worth paying for, and that sums up a lot of the headwinds, then colleges that are cheaper and offer more career oriented programming, as many state schools do, should come out ahead.

I'm thinking this is more school specific than it is good news for the vast majority of schools that make up D3. In fact, I think this is actually bad news for most of those schools.

[TheChucker]

Some good news to share in the D3 world.

CNU Shatters Early Application Record

The evidence points to state schools, especially mainstream state schools, being better positioned to survive the problems in higher education than private schools, so this doesn't really surprise me. The issue is value/result, and if the belief is that a) college is still worthwhile but b) it's too expensive and c) liberal arts isn't worth paying for, and that sums up a lot of the headwinds, then colleges that are cheaper and offer more career oriented programming, as many state schools do, should come out ahead.

I'm thinking this is more school specific than it is good news for the vast majority of schools that make up D3. In fact, I think this is actually bad news for most of those schools.

The State of Minnesota just created a program granting free state school tuition to families making under $80,000 in AGI. One more blow to private colleges. It may be that those same families would get a lot of financial aid from a private school anyhow, but free is hard to match.

[IC798891]

Some good news to share in the D3 world.

CNU Shatters Early Application Record

The evidence points to state schools, especially mainstream state schools, being better positioned to survive the problems in higher education than private schools, so this doesn't really surprise me. The issue is value/result, and if the belief is that a) college is still worthwhile but b) it's too expensive and c) liberal arts isn't worth paying for, and that sums up a lot of the headwinds, then colleges that are cheaper and offer more career oriented programming, as many state schools do, should come out ahead.

I'm thinking this is more school specific than it is good news for the vast majority of schools that make up D3. In fact, I think this is actually bad news for most of those schools.

I was just talking about this with a friend of mine.

The challenge in convincing students to study say, journalism, at a more prestigious private institution rather than a state school when both paths lead to the same entry level job as a reporter for some small regional network/paper — at which point you're proving yourself via what you do there and the name of the school on the resume means less to the person making those subsequent hiring decisions?

[Ron Boerger]

Early enrollment (or as both CNU and my private alma mater term it, Early Decision) is something schools have been pushing because it allows them to lock in students early in the process.  Trinity too had a record number of applications and early enrollments last year and I wouldn't be surprised if the trend continues this year.

I don't know what penalty can be levied on a student who decides to go elsewhere after receiving what CNU (and others) term a "binding" offer; certainly this must happen, but it must not be enough of a problem to keep schools from promoting the option. 

[Gray Fox]

Some good news to share in the D3 world.

CNU Shatters Early Application Record

The evidence points to state schools, especially mainstream state schools, being better positioned to survive the problems in higher education than private schools, so this doesn't really surprise me. The issue is value/result, and if the belief is that a) college is still worthwhile but b) it's too expensive and c) liberal arts isn't worth paying for, and that sums up a lot of the headwinds, then colleges that are cheaper and offer more career oriented programming, as many state schools do, should come out ahead.

I'm thinking this is more school specific than it is good news for the vast majority of schools that make up D3. In fact, I think this is actually bad news for most of those schools.

The State of Minnesota just created a program granting free state school tuition to families making under $80,000 in AGI. One more blow to private colleges. It may be that those same families would get a lot of financial aid from a private school anyhow, but free is hard to match.

$100,000 in Texas.

[Pat Coleman]

It's not a great sign that they're facing a $30 million deficit and looking for revenue generation ideas nearly immediately after completing a capital campaign.

It looks like the enrollment is trending back, but they're still 700 off from where they were. Ideally though, the money raised in that capital campaign will result in improvements that will positively impact applications and yield

This president has big plans of increasing enrollment to 10,000, of which about 3,500 would ideally be undergraduates. We'll see how this pans out. I had a very interesting and completely off the record conversation with him at an alumni event this fall in Minneapolis.

[Ron Boerger]

An article about Baldwin Wallace's interim provost/acting president immediately stepping down yesterday led me to an October article which stated the school would be eliminating 64 "staff, faculty and executive level positions in its second round of job cuts this year" to deal with a $7m deficit.  The cuts include "two executive level layoffs, eight staff layoffs and 18 faculty"; "faculty and staff were offered buyouts that provide severance pay along with the option to teach though the end of the fall semester or through the end of the academic year".  This is on top of 23 job cuts in February.  The school is also eliminating ten academic programs:  music history, jazz, visual/studio art, communication studies, film studies, public relations, public health, master of public health, digital marketing-to-MBA graduate program and leadership in higher education graduate program.

BW's 990s show losses three of the last five years, with deficits increasing from -$3.4M in 2019 to -$10.9M in 2022 and $16.3M in 2023 (partially offset by gains of $2.6M and $1.9M in the intervening two years).  The balance sheet shows $307M in net assets; $165M in investments, $157M in plant and property against $16.6M in bond liabilities and $26M in unsecured notes payable and $6.7M in other liabilities.