Ironically, accounting faculty are among the most expensive at my (no engineering, or med/law school) regional university.
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No surprise that when those qualified for faculty jobs have relatively plentiful possibilities of non-academic jobs, colleges have to pay more for them to join the faculty, or face shortages of faculty in those subjects. So those subjects, which are often popular with students due to job and career prospects after graduation, are more likely to be capacity-limited subjects (e.g. business, computer science, some kinds of engineering, nursing) where admission is more selective than the college overall, or where there is a secondary admission process after enrolling.
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Kindasorta true.
F’rex, the life sciences, which have long had an abysmally low in-field job placement rate for PhDs, are also expensive to offer, though in their case it’s more usually due to the need for labs and similar facilities than the direct cost of faculty salaries.
When I visited with my old college friend/former mills professor (who also represented faculty in several capacities but I can’t recall exactly her role) it sounded like there was a sense that one of the proposed “benefits” of the “new” NE model was to move around from campus to campus, and that was moreso the rule than the exception now.
I agree that this is an opportunity for Northeastern to have a new program. Such a program likely would not flourish on the Boston campus but, as you say, this is NYC!. The Marymount School of Performing Arts at Northeastern University-New York City sounds good. Keep in mind that a performing arts degree from any school, even Julliard, is no guarantee of professional success, I believe that Columbia University was sued by alumni of its MA in Acting program claiming they were misled about outcomes.
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From what I read, Mills had three options:
- Closure.
- Acquisition by UC Berkeley as an overflow campus. UCB desperately needed more residence space.
- Merger with Northeastern.
And the magical thinking of an alumnae group that they had a plan for Mills to survive as is never panned out, probably because they were unable to present a specific plan.
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I doubt that accusations of overselling are a risk at the undergrad level. It would be hard for anyone to make a case that they didn’t know an undergrad MT degree (or any undergrad performing arts degree) offered no guarantee of a career as a performer. The overselling of cash-cow masters programs is an issue well beyond the performing arts, and well beyond Columbia.
What I wonder more is whether NU is going to be willing to move these performing arts BFA programs under their umbrella of guaranteed full-need-met aid. Marymount Manhattan’s programs are well-respected, but the average percentage of need met at that institution is 60%. Will NU consider these programs sustainable, if they can’t skew enrollment toward students who provide revenue?
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Still, the potential if NU is willing to invest looks amazing to me. It isn’t as if full-need-met MT programs don’t exist. (CMU’s top-tier program would be one example.) And how many talented students, who have historically chosen other options over Marymount Manhattan both because of its weaker academic reputation and because of concerns about its financial stability, would jump at the chance to pursue their craft in NYC and earn an NU degree? IMHO they could build a powerful brand here if they wanted to.
But the easier path would be to repurpose the real estate and just keep doing what they know, which is already in high demand and which would only be further enhanced by the allure of NYC. Not to mention that they may want the capacity to rotate Boston students through a “semester in NYC” program, as BU does with their LA campus. This could be a huge draw for business students studying finance, for design students in the “global fashion design” minor, and so on.
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Northeastern could do both. Aside from performing arts there was nothing unique about MMC.
MMC started out as a Catholic women’s college. It went coed and dropped the Catholic affiliation decades ago.
The trend is that the religion-affiliated colleges are monetizing their assets and getting out of the “school” game.
The trend of the larger institutions acting like the “whale” and eating up the small fish just mirrors what is going in in the business world. But, many of these smaller colleges did meet specific needs and were/are very important to the communities surrounding them.
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The University of the Arts is closing in 1 week, on June 7. One thing I noticed in the article is that they have nearly 700 employees for less than 1150 students. Seems like a ridiculously high amount of staff and they were way too slow to downsize to match their lower enrollment.
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We have a student just graduated at our HS who, I suspect, was given a full ride to this school due to need. This will be devastating for her and her family.
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Some of the high end LACs that are favored on these forums have approximately as many employees as students. Of course, they probably have the endowments and income to afford having that many employees.
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Will admitted students be sent to other universities (according to the article, they have no teach out plans for their students but paetnerships with Drexel, Temple, and Moore College of Art & Design)?
But of course, there’s no possible way to guess whether the other university will honor the FA offer.
If there’s any way for you to reach out, she or her family can post a thread here so we can help them go through the NACAC list.
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When I look at the merge of MMC and Northeastern to me it looked more like the London campus then mills. It feels like a housing deal more than classrooms. They don’t have much of a campus with just a building and two residential buildings not even close to each other. 700 bed in NYC is amazing to start with and what looks like great housing facility.
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Hoping B-S can win its baseball game today. Heartwarming/heart wrenching story for the school.
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Drexel and Arcadia are saying they will do their best to match FA offers for affected students. Have the student contact those admissions offices.
I am not exactly sure why schools aren’t utilizing the NACAC list…there are 259 schools or so on that list, but 600+ common app schools still accepting apps if one searches in common app.
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That’s because they have a very high number of part time faculty. It’s a school of the arts, so the faculty may teach only a class or two. PT faculty costs A LOT less than FT faculty, so the numbers aren’t that concerning. I suspect that the financial issues have to do with increased financial aid, declining investment value, and general increased costs to do business that face all colleges. Financial issues can snowball when enrollment declines - and because schools often increase financial aid to fill seats, the problem is exacerbated.
I noticed that the accreditor didn’t seem to raise any red flags prior to last fall. That was related to enrollment. There isn’t any mention in the synopsis that finances were an immediate concern. How this seemingly came out of nowhere to the extent that the school had to immediately close is baffling. The President is relatively new, so maybe they uncovered information that was shocking enough to warrant closure just as a new term was beginning. It’s absolutely awful … my heart goes out to the students, the faculty and the staff. I know someone who teaches PT there, and while she doesn’t make a lot, she’s an artist who cobbles together a number of jobs to make ends meet. This is definitely a financial blow.
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Over all Pennsylvania will see more universities either merging or closing down. La Salle could be next if they can’t restructure themselves. Was shocked to see undergrad students down 46% and their revenue from tuition dropped from 2022 to 2023. Pittsburgh Technical College has issues and is on probation.
Philly has watched a few universities disappear via mergers
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