Aside from aid to student-athletes (as mentioned by @fiftyfifty1), it is not the same for colleges. The topline number for institutional aid is reported, but the breakdown of that aid is widely treated as a trade secret, and even that topline number is often obfuscated in, um, interesting ways.
2 Likes
really, that is interesting
1 Like
Schools do a myriad of creative things to get money for athletes. They can be merit but, merit for what is where the Harry Potter magic comes in.
1 Like
D3 schools have to report the average net COA for athletes and average net COA for non-athletes, several times per year. Those numbers must be in line with each other (not sure the allowable margin of difference), but these numbers are closely monitored.
8 Likes
Not that many years ago a school (I think it was in NYC but I could be remembering wrong) was in trouble with the NCAA because athletes got more work study (and somewhat plum jobs) than non-athletes. That’s how closely the NCAA watches the numbers.
One thing I do think coaches do a good job with is making sure athletes get everything they are in line for. At daughter’s school there were 2 grants that every athlete got - touring campus before acceptance, and knowing an alum. The coaches made sure they toured and that they met an alum. All students were eligible for this, but sometimes no one told them; the coaches did tell them.
3 Likes
Penn State is offering buyouts to faculty at its regional campuses. Here are enrolment changes over the past 5 years. Campus closures are not off the table.
4 Likes
The oversight is driven by NCAA leagues. However, the ground is very muddy at the club and what I refer to “pseudo” varsity level which is not played under the NCAA banner. The NCAA’s relevance remains powerful but becoming tainted because the kitchen cupboard has been opened with athletes now being paid in some circumstances.
2 Likes
Looking at the data in the article, these are some observations:
19 Penn State branch campuses
- 5 with enrollments below 500
- 7 with enrollments between 500-999
- 1 with positive enrollment growth
- 3 with enrollment declines between -2 and -8%
- 11 with enrollment declines between -14 and -19%
- 3 with enrollment declines between -21 and -29%
- 1 with enrollment decline of -37%
Curiosity being what it is, here are some data on other Pennsylvania systems:
- UPitt has 4 regional campuses (source)
- PASSHE has 14 campuses (source)
- Temple has 3 non-main campuses in Pennsylvania (source)
- The state has 15 community colleges (source).
- 44 public 4-year colleges in PA, per Niche
Looking at these maps, I hope that access, equity, and the quality of facilities will play a more prominent role in decision-making about future campuses than which areas/politicians have the most political sway, as hard decisions are looming.
(1-25 in Niche)
(26-44 in Niche)
Will not add maps of the community colleges, as Niche won’t let me restrict to public campuses.
8 Likes
North of the border, Canadian universities are struggling with numbers. Some top schools, like Queens (For engineering) are struggling. McGill has seen a drop in “international” applications (partly because of what the Quebec govt proposed for tuition). There is a large wave of kids over the past 5 years that have opted to work rather than pursue post-secondary education. Also, the Canadian govt has become more stringent on issuing student VISAs.
6 Likes
D3 colleges giving extra $ (beyond the average discount a non-athlete would get) to club sport athletes is not a thing. It could happen at something like mens’ crew/non-NCAA varsity sports, but again, I just don’t think we are talking meaningful numbers or dollars.
3 Likes
Of possible interest to those following this thread: Scammers are stealing the identities of closed colleges (from USA Today)
5 Likes
I know on the hockey side, some ACHA schools give much better deals than many D3 NCAA schools. They find ways.
Quebec Premier Legault has said that McGill and Concordia are too big, and he wants them to shrink.
2 Likes
My comments were limited to D3 schools.
Next election he will be history. The real target is McGill. Many Montreal francophones go to McGill and it is growing since the 1980s. Like every where it is all about playing to the tune of the “rural” base.
3 Likes
Totally understand. Which is why ACHA and club hockey is growing exponentially. NCAA is too rigid and archaic.
1 Like
Penn state also announced they want to increase the freshman class at Up to 10,000 which will mean more students would be taken who would have gone to the regional campuses and in reality DUS at UP takes a lot of students from the regional campuses.
Some campuses don’t make sense. Altoona is too close to UP. It’s too many state universities competing against each other with instate tuitions that seem too expensive compared to other state schools.
4 Likes
^ Just a few remarks wrt the public higher education landscape in PA - No one can “transfer” (* ) as DUS - DUS can only be chosen as a freshman since it allows to pivot to any major up to ~45credits; students can only go to UP once they’ve completed all the pre-reqs for one major. DUS is the equivalent of “exploratory” or “undecided” at other universities. It’s become quite competitive to get into since students figured it was easier to get into than Smeal or Engineering and as a result have used it if their profile makes that choice of major risky… and have greatly increased DUS selectivity. Unofficially DUS is about as competitive as Eberly college of science. Only Nursing, Business, and Engineering are more competitive, especially past the Priority deadline. UP actually directs a lot of would-be DUS students to branch campuses (there is only 1 choice of major on the application but always 2 campuses.)
Altoona is actually one of the more popular branches, it fills up very quickly (maximum capacity is something like 4,000) because it’s near UP so students can join friends there on weekends and it offers a fully fledged 4-year campus like Harrisburg and Behrend, and as the newly developed Abington is trying to be.
(* the official term is “transition to” because it’s automatic. About half PSU graduates started at a branch campus.)
The mountains make travelling difficult, especially in the winter, so it’s difficult to commute. Therefore it makes sense to have local campuses in the various rural communities (which they often anchor).
The problem is that CCs lead to PASSHE schools and not to PSU which prefers students from the 2+2 at branches, so PASSHEs and PSU branches overlap. The problem is compounded by poor financial aid. The new governor is increasing PHEAA grants so that (public) PASSHE and CCs become affordable for middle income families, meaning many branches will become even less profitable.
In my opinion, whenever a PSU branch is close to a PASSHE, the branch should close unless it’s near a population center.
The problem is that PSU and Pitt are the state’s flagships, even though they’re only “state related”, so that the state has no public flagship.
6 Likes
As a parent of a Penn state student and in the parents group on Facebook the amount of advice to change admission to DUS to avoid the regional campus pushes a lot of students who should have gone to the regional campus. As for Altoona I think enrollment is around 2500 now…
Wisconsin is shutting down branches and I think Penn state should start. Those campuses were designed when students needed to stay close to home to help the family then get the option to shift to UP. Our kids want the UP experience and if the main campus started to increase their freshman class it will hit the regional campuses as most apply to UP and if they don’t get admitted they get the regional option
Exactly! Even some board members don’t get that. It’s about the debits & credits on the balance sheet. If a student is enrolled, there is a corresponding charge for tuition associated with that student. You can’t just pretend that the student isn’t there. If the student doesn’t pay anything, the tuition that is charged has to be offset by scholarship or grant … and if there is no actual money set aside in a scholarship or grant fund, the charge becomes an operating loss.
1 Like