Higher Education Inquirer : college campus

Showing posts with label college campus. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 14, 2024

College Meltdown 3.0 Could Start Earlier (And End Worse) Than Planned

Chronicling the College Meltdown

Since 2016, the Higher Education Inquirer has documented the College Meltdown as a series of demographic and business trends leading to lower enrollments and making higher education of decreasing value to working-class and middle-class folks. This despite the commonly-held belief that college is the only way to improve social mobility.

For more than a dozen years, the College Meltdown has been most visible at for-profit colleges and community colleges, but other non-elite schools and for-profit businesses have also been affected. Some regions, states, and counties have been harder hit than others. Non-elite state universities are becoming increasingly vulnerable.

Elite schools, on the other hand, do not need students for revenues, at least in the short run. They depend more on endowments, donations, real estate, government grants, corporate grants, and other sources of income. Elite schools also have more than enough demand for their product even after receiving bad press.

The perceived value and highly variable real value of higher education has made college less attractive to many working-class consumers and to an increasing number of middle-class consumers--who see it as a risky proposition. Degrees in the humanities and social sciences are becoming a tough sell. Even some STEM degrees may not be valuable for too long. Public opinion about higher education and the value of higher education has been waning and many degrees, especially graduate degrees, have a negative return on investment.

Tuition and room and board costs have skyrocketed. Online learning has become more prominent, despite persistent questions about its educational value.

While college degrees have worked for millions of graduates, student loans have mired millions of other former students, and their families, in long-term debt, doing work in fields they aren't happy with.

Elite degrees for people in the upper class still make sense though, as status symbols and social sorters. And there are some professions that require degrees for inclusion. But those degrees and the lucrative jobs accompanying them disproportionately go to foreigners and immigrants, and their children--a demographic wave that may draw the ire of folks who have lived in the US for generations and who may have not enjoyed the same opportunities.

Starting Sooner and Ending Worse

The latest phase of the College Meltdown was supposed to result from a declining number of high school graduates in 2025, something Nathan Grawe projected from lower birth rates following the 2008-2009 recession.

But problems with the federal government's financial aid system may mean that a significant decline in enrollment at non-elite schools starts this fall instead of 2025.

The College Meltdown may become even worse than planned, in terms of lower enrollment and declining revenues to non-elite schools. Enrollment numbers most assuredly will be worse than Department of Education projections of slow growth until 2030.

In 2023, we wrote about something few others reported on: that community colleges and state universities would feel more financial pressure from by the flip-side of the Baby Boom: the enormous costs of taking care of the elderly which could drain public coffers that subsidize higher education. This was a phenomenon that should also have been anticipated by higher education policy makers, but is still rarely discussed. Suzanne Mettler graphed this out in Degrees of Inequality a decade ago--and the Government Accountability Office noted the huge projected costs in 2002.

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

Barnes & Noble Bookstores and Starbucks on Campus: Things of the Past or New Spaces for Democracy?

There are currently more than 750 Barnes & Noble college bookstores across the US. But today, these bookstores are considered a losing proposition for the Basking Ridge, New Jersey-based company. Shares of BNED have recently dropped below $1 and there don't seem to be any buyers in sight.

Barnes & Noble college bookstores have done a few things over the years to get students to come in and buy, teaming up with Starbucks and selling overpriced merchandise. And they have been cost cutting. Wages at Barnes and Noble stores are low and schools rely on college students for much of the work. But coffee and snacks, high prices, low wages and reduced staffing haven't been enough to make the stores profitable.

The company did have a resurgence during the COVID pandemic (2020-2021) but that was short lived.

The pandemic led to a shift to online learning, which boosted demand for digital textbooks and other educational materials. Barnes and Noble Education was well-positioned to benefit from this trend, as it has a strong digital business.

In December 2020, Barnes and Noble Education secured a $15 million investment from Fanatics and Lids, two sports merchandise retailers. This investment was seen as a vote of confidence in Barnes and Noble Education's business model and its potential for growth.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, Barnes and Noble Education received $40,627,996 in COVID relief funds under the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) program. The company used these funds to provide financial assistance to students, faculty, and staff, and to cover the costs of responding to the pandemic.

BNED is trying to stay up with the times and also keep their physical presence by offering First Day Complete, bundles of required digital course materials which are supposed to save money for students and schools. But will that be enough to keep the stores open?

(Barnes & Noble at Camden County College, Camden, New Jersey)

Glimmer of (Democratic) Hope

In May, workers at the Rutgers University bookstore voted to unionize, joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). According to Publisher's Weekly "bookstore unions across the country have gained significant ground."

Students at more than 50 colleges have also called for the expulsion of anti-union Starbucks stores from their campuses. And Starbucks Workers Solidarity has asked community members to boycott Starbucks until their local store has received a contract.

Starbucks Workers Solidarity has unionized at more than 300 locations, but at a price: the closing of a few stores as a form of corporate retaliation--and to generate fear among workers. Recently, the University of Southern California, known for its neoliberal policies, evicted a small business owner outside USC's Keck Hospital, in favor of a Starbucks.

Tuesday, January 3, 2023

Manhattanville College’s Administration Tries to Save School...by Removing its Heart (Bob Frank)

During the past two years, administrators at storied Manhattanville College have removed 46 full-time faculty--by paying then to retire or laying them off. Last month, for the first time in Manhattanville's history, tenured faculty in the arts and humanities were pushed away.

Since the 1840s, Manhattanville College was famous for its caring faculty. But now they will follow a CUNY/SUNY big school format, with most courses taught by adjunct faculty.

As much as the college claims on its front page to "put focus on the future," the reality is that of less caring, financially unstable institution.

To survive, Manhattanville College has chosen to cut full-time faculty, grow its administration, and create new interdisciplinary degrees. Unfortunately, no-one knows what those new interdisciplinary degrees will look like.

The Manhattanville faculty is the heart of the institution. To discard so many of them, points towards a lack of vision from its administration.

Today, there are no more tenured faculty in many of the humanities and art disciplines and degrees such in Art History, Languages, Music, Technical Theatre, and many more, have been frozen. The future of this institution looks grim, following many years of catastrophic poor leadership and financial distress.

Students are also voicing opposition to these developments in this Change.org petition.

One needs to ask "How can a small liberal arts college survive under the current financial climate?"

It appears Manhattanville’s administration, and its Board of Trustees, believe the answer is by freezing disciplines and replacing them with new degrees that have a proven history of being financially lucrative. But is that really the answer?

In reality, after removing 50 percent of its full-time faculty, this college has lost its heart. The heart of Manhattanville College was its faculty and the only reason for students to choose this college.

Compared to nearby, cheaper colleges, Manhattanville is small, with old dormitories, poor student activities, and not much to do during the weekends. Yet, it was a warm and wonderful campus, a place where students knew they were the center of attention, and faculty went far beyond their teaching duties to reach out to all students.

When transforming a college by removing its heart, one wonders what the future holds, and how long it will take to regain an identity students can trust.

Petition:

End the Administration of Manhattanville College's Negligence Towards Students and Staff