Deficits a Rising Concern for Middlebury, Higher Enrollment Targeted

[merc81]

Union College has fallen short in filling its freshman class for two years and is now pulling millions of dollars from its endowment to balance its budget, college President David Harris said in an email to the staff.

The college typically has 560 freshmen each year. But this year’s class was smaller and needed more financial aid than previous classes, Harris said. The Union College website says that class had 511 students.

The incoming class for the fall also has fewer than 560 students.

[NemesisLead]

You are spot on. The problem is that Middlebury has people beating down its doors to get in. So the leadership takes the “lazy” approach and just increases enrollment and/or tuition.

Cutting costs involves disappointing people and doing real work. They want no part of that if they can avoid it.

And it isn’t just Middlebury. It is human nature. This happens everywhere.

[merc81]

In support of Union, its science facilities are quite remarkable at this time:

Best Colleges for Science Lab Facilities | The Princeton Review

Prospective applicants and students who plan on studying in the sciences may benefit ftom considering this characteristic when researching Union.

[arcadia]

Since this thread is about Middlebury’s financial situation, some might be interested in knowing that Midd just had one of its best fundraising years ever, bringing in over $100M.

Middlebury Raises $100 million in One of Its Best Fundraising Years Ever

[cquin85]

Is that all going to endowment? I assume that a chunk of it will be allocated to capital projects.

[arcadia]

I’m not certain how it gets allocated, although the press release did have some info (e.g.,$20 million will go toward new endowed funds to support financial aid).

[Bill_Marsh]

Schools with solely an undergrad enrollment - like Middlebury - are highly dependent on tuition to pay operating expenses. What other choices do they have other than to accept more students - specially at a school where applicants are beatin down the doors to get in th schools which are really in trouble are the other undergrad focused colleges which don’t have a surplus of quality applicants.

[cquin85]

Feels similar to Wesleyan’s current capital raise (which incidentally is also $600 million).

I think much of that is going to the many capital projects they have been doing, other money to current programs, etc. and a relatively small amount to endowment/fin aid.