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These small, bottom-tier schools SHOULD close. The students there are largely on federal grant funding, taking low-level classes that are remedial high school level, and then classes either towards certifications that could have been obtained more quickly and at a quarter the price at a community college, or towards education - but they're never going to be able to pass the required state certification tests to become a teacher.
Lots of their students were first gen to college, whose families were borrowing money to fund worthless educations, fooled by the idea that their child was going to COLLEGE, when the academic level there was so low that their time and money were wasted.
By far, the vast majority of the students at these small bottom-tier private colleges would be better and more cheaply served by community colleges.
I argue that any public college that ONLY pisses off 50% of the population is not doing their job.
If we want our youth to be fully educated, and able to analyze all side of an issue, the students need to be exposed to ideas and theories which reflect their pre-college life as well as those which are fully opposite to their pre-college experiences.
A properly functioning public institute of learning should regularly be pissing-off 85% of the population!
The remaining 15% are those who realize that students need to be exposed to both sides of every issue to better decide which opinion is right for them.
There have been a lot of analysis and furcating (and some CD discussions) about a coming college crises. However now that it appears to have arrived, there is little. It is not just small or bad colleges that are downsizing and closing, but mid sized and pretty decent colleges. The prediction was that the very top end and very bottom end colleges would do OK while those in the middle would take a beating and many would fail. That appears to be exactly what is happening. This is not just a slow down tin the growth of admissions that was discussed in the 2017 article, but a significant drop in applications. There is a lot more downsizing than closing going on right now. Some universities are cutting entire programs, including tenured professors. There is a glut of unemployed professors or soon to be unemployed professors on the market. Jobs that used to get a handful of responses at best now get dozens or even hundreds.
It is odd how quiet it is. The fact that we have to reach back to 2017 to find articles about a coming crash demonstrates how little attention this is getting in the media now that the predicted crash is here. It seems strange.
You can find information if you are interested enough to hunt for it, but it is not all over the media despite the fact the media seems hard pressed to find significant issues to discuss (hence people end up arguing over Dr. Seuss).
I just want to say, here, regarding the bolded, that state universities were put in that position by their state legislatures, who chose to slough off support for higher ed as one of their functions and budget items. This began back in the 80's, and continued every decade since: cuts to staff, then closing entire programs even at state flagship schools, then trimming tenured faculty from what remained, and more staff cuts. Replacing survey course professors with grad student TA's. Then later--adjuncts.
It's not even a "crying shame", it's an outrage. Why doesn't the US support its higher public education? What's up with that?!
I agree. This is an outrage.
Our small liberal arts colleges are a treasure. They are where students obtain the best educations available.
Our small liberal arts colleges are a treasure. They are where students obtain the best educations available.
Our country has misplaced priorities.
Maybe YOUR small liberal arts colleges are a treasure. We have a few around this area that are pretty good 2nd rate wastes of time and money. The majority do offer a decent education, but there are some that are simply poor duplications of programs offered at better and often less expensive institutions.
Maybe YOUR small liberal arts colleges are a treasure. We have a few around this area that are pretty good 2nd rate wastes of time and money. The majority do offer a decent education, but there are some that are simply poor duplications of programs offered at better and often less expensive institutions.
You better not be talkin' 'bout Augie.
I grew up Lutheran and when I was a kid one of my favorite football players was Les Josephson who was an Augie man. So I was always a fan of them. One of my boyhood heroes from my High School football team is head guy of the Lutheran Church there in Sioux Falls. Augie and the Yotes are two of my favorite small college teams.
It's ok if you were talking about the Baptists over at USF.
I grew up Lutheran and when I was a kid one of my favorite football players was Les Josephson who was an Augie man. So I was always a fan of them. One of my boyhood heroes from my High School football team is head guy of the Lutheran Church there in Sioux Falls. Augie and the Yotes are two of my favorite small college teams.
It's ok if you were talking about the Baptists over at USF.
Couldn't be said any better. Each time I return to both my undergraduate and graduate alma maters (both national universities) I see some brand new building going up or some really unnecessary change made to the student center. I just got to wonder if the tuition I paid mostly went to fancy architecture and the university president's salary. Maybe a little of both. Small no name liberal arts colleges that only offer select majors, many of which are impractical in today's world, and have few large donors cannot afford to maintain their fancy campuses. Even those without fancy campuses cannot compete if their maintenance costs alone exceed their revenue. While it's sad to see these schools go, the writing for them was already on the wall. Personally, I think secondary school education ought to be ramped up perhaps with enhanced junior colleges offering practical skills instead of funding wasteful 4 year colleges.
I agree with this 100!
Here are a couple of things I believe play into this.
1 Colleges have become top heavy with administration. How many gift officers and deans do we need to pay 100K a year. This coupled with investing in the college experience instead of the education aspect are going to be hit the hardest.
2.people are becoming wise to the investment on return. Companies are desperate for workers. Obtaining a training certificate or technical training can get you in the door quickly.
3.there is a huge disconnect between colleges and what jobs and training are available in the private sector. They don’t connect and as a result people are saddled with tons of debt and a worthless paper that can’t get them a job.
4. President Biden wants community and junior colleges free to attend. If that happens you can kiss a lot of colleges and universities goodbye. Especially if this meets the need of businesses to find workers. I’m not seeing many business going out and giving full throated endorsement to a 4 year program. Companies need workers now.
5. Affordable, accessible and quality. Colleges that hit those marks will survive. Those that don’t won’t. It’s that simple.
Most of them are small Bible or religiously affiliated colleges. Well, Americans are rapidly becoming less religious and so there is much less demand for religiously oriented liberal arts education like there was 100 or 50 years ago. Also the most closures are happenning where these colleges are most built-out. A lot of these little colleges were started up during periods of religious revival and population growth in the northeast and upper midwest. Now there is less religious interest combined with less population growth, so fewer students. Yes, they will continue to contract. However, many or most of them will stabilize at a smaller enrollment size. Most schools are pretty flexible and you'd be surprised how much they can contract and still survive.
Contrary to what people are saying on this board, the closure of these small liberal arts colleges was not because of their lack of quality or their lack of innovation. Such as this one in Oregon: https://www.insidehighered.com/digit...learning-adult It did everything mostly right. They were light on administration, they focused on adult learners, they developed and innovated into the online space as early as 1998. As the article notes, small colleges like this simply don't have the deep pockets or reputational heft to out-compete the big guys, regardless of the quality.
It will not be a major crisis, but it will be a contraction and then stabilization of the higher ed sector and it will consume the weakest players. The small colleges that have reasonable debt loads will be fine. They'll just be smaller.
If it plays out similarly to the way various business sectors have, e.g.: music or books, it will result in a contraction at first but then a renaissance of demand for "independent" options. The big state universities are already the Wal-Mart of college and not everyone will want that.
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