There’s no football in the fall.
I work at a Division II school. We eliminated 5 sports and the cheer squad last week. If we have to do onlin classes in the fall then furloughs are next for staff I suspect.
I don’t mean to be cruel. I really don’t. But a lot of universities and colleges have been riding the gravy train for a long time. They’ve taken advantage of the ready availability of student debt/loans and the demand created thereby to hike tuition and housing to often absurd levels. They fund raise like all get out, trading access for donations. All the while spending money like drunken sailors with little accountability, including by hiring layers of administration at relatively high pay. It all seems to be coming to a screeching halt. Not sure I’m sad to see it. Meanwhile, I’m trying to determine if next fall will require me to pay full tuition for 2 daughters to attend college almost certainly online. If that is required, not sure how I’ll react. Maybe a little dip into the endowment might be in order. Surely the endowment trust’s rules allow for that in a crisis like this.
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This statement alone tells me how little you understand about the economics of higher education - i.e. the massive economic activity it generates, the budgetary constraints they face, and especially the realities of admin pay. I would laugh, but it’s too unfortunate this is a real belief people have.
Whatever “belief I have” is not without real foundation. Yeah, generate your “economic activity” by hiking tuition and prompt naive students to incur massive debt they can’t feasibly pay back. That’s just great policy:
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Lot of support staff will get laid off. Most can’t afford to miss too many paychecks.
It’s awful Richard. I don’t want anyone to lose his or her job. Truly don’t. My comments were not meant to minimize anything about folks losing jobs. The Covid-19 is a massive strain on the economy and is exposing weaknesses in business models we never really had to think about. I think many colleges and universities have had bad business models over the past 20 years or so. We will see if those get exposed. The next 2-5 months will be critical.
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If you’re mad about high tuition blame the lack of federal and state funding that’s been cut massively (by both Dem & Rep admins) over the past 20 years. They want the money it generates but they don’t want to fund it, so we do instead.
It is certainly not because of “high paying admin jobs.” I assure you.
My tuition at UA 40 years ago was something like $600 a semester. IIRC room and board were maybe $1200.
Now, when I plug in my circumstances (the dorm I lived in, the meal plan I had), spring semester alone as an in-state student is more than $10,000. Room and board alone are $5500.
State money has been reduced (I had to leave a cushy job with the University of Texas in 2003 because their legislative appropriations had been slashed and a lot of jobs had to disappear). Federal money isn’t much better. Are there more administrators making more money than there were in 1980? Are the basic costs of providing an education a lot higher now? Sure on both counts. But not enough to quadruple-plus the cost of attending school.
But if you think state schools have it rough, and they do, private schools have it worse. I read recently that 20% of the private colleges in the US may not survive this pandemic. My sources tell me two private schools here in Arkansas are teetering on the edge.
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This post started off with talks of salary cuts, more on line courses, and changes related to the events of c-19. There will be greater changes than those in that many 2 year, junior colleges, and some 4 year colleges will all be shuttered due to the damage being done to the financial models in many of the things we have come to accept as normal. Normal will be much different in three years the future when the damage of this is close to recovering. Probablility is that we are still year or longer from a vaccine for the masses if one can be had at all. In meantime much of the money that supports colleges are in the critical age and demographic group just like the posters on this board. Demand destruction and the deflation we have in our society now will force a reset on much of what we do going forward.
Which colleges pray tell?
Arkansas Baptist and Crowley’s Ridge College in Paragould.
Your statement tells me how little you understand the real world if you think that there is not fat in administration!!!
Another 12 solid months of Covid-19 and the Ivy League may become the new Big 10/ACC in basketball. Harvard, with their current $40 Billion dollar endowment will become the new Duke in college basketball.
Everyone’s “remoting” now. Digital learning, to mass audiences, needs to happen as BAU. The issue is we not only have too many Macy’s we have too many universities.
How bout a virtual hug you guys? Simmer down.
I sure hate to see anybody suffer because of this terrible event, but I think there will be many resets in the world as we know it now. With the combination of the pandemic, the cost of debt that it seems many incur in attending college, coupled with the fact that the evolving economy is calling for more skilled and technical workers (a area that the current system has not excelled), it may be hard for State and federal lawmakers to justify funding at levels required to support universities, and schools in the current form.
Thank you, Richard, for urging more civility.
It is oh so hard to hold ones’s tongue even at my age.
We really do need some sports to resume.
Sometimes we need to hold back and realize how blessed we are despite all the challenges.
Lets have fun with this instead of it getting the best of us.
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Some I listen to here, some I do not.
I pay more attention to Richard than some of the others here.
What may happen is anyone’s guess. But I don’t think it will be different in a huge way. I probably still be writing stories and some will like em. Some will not. And I’ll ignore the ones who are more about tearing down. Some of that here.