I think we will be seeing a lot of this. A new president comes on, rightly demands an audit of finances, uncovers the truth.
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I don’t know this college, but employee numbers at universities where I have worked include anyone receiving a paycheck. This means that a large number of employees are actually students on work study or other university employment.
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After reading about UArts last night I looked up my son’s current favorite choice for 2025, Columbia College Chicago. It looks like it is also in some real financial trouble. I wonder if the shift to many students wanting STEM degrees is hurting these creative colleges. I’m so sad right now
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It could be that students and their parents are looking at the outcomes of graduates of such colleges and are questioning whether they want to invest $100,000 to $200,000 in an education that for many, or most, will not lead to the graduate being able to support themselves.
This is what’s worrying me about so many of these.
I see firsthand how much time and sweat and anxiety and so on goes into reports for accreditors, and how comprehensive they are. I’m seriously starting to wonder what they’re even doing if they can’t flag cases like this.
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Accreditation visits are every 10 years for reaccreditation. A lot can happen in 10 years. If there are issues with the visit, then interim visits/reports are scheduled. But colleges complete a lot of very involved surveys on a regular basis, and there is a lot of information that can be gleaned from those reports (IPEDS, accreditation reporting, financial aid reporting, single audit reports, etc). I’m not sure how much of this information is reviewed by the accreditor on an ongoing basis - if they aren’t monitoring those reports, maybe they should be.
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As of early Friday evening, staff and students hadn’t been notified.
This royally ticked me off. Apparently an email was sent around 8PM.
Less than a year ago, the university welcomed Walk, formerly president of Marymount Manhattan College, as its new president.
President Walk may not have known much about U. of the Arts’ real finances when she arrived, but she came from MMC which was just bought out by Northeastern. I don’t know whether she’s known as a person to help wind down a college or a turnaround president or what, but since she’s served as president of MMC and U. of the Arts over the last two years and they’re both closing at the same time, this doesn’t speak well for her future either.
One of the Pennsylvania State Representatives said,
It is unacceptable that such a cornerstone of our cultural and educational landscape has shut its doors in such an abrupt and shocking manner.
Perhaps some legislation about closing down in a responsible manner might be in the works for Pennsylvania, as it now seems to be in New York after the closure of Wells?
The news of UArts’ closure comes less than a year after the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts had announced that it was eliminating its bachelor’s and master’s of fine arts programs. PAFA developed “personalized transfer plans” for students to other local universities so they could complete their studies.
One of those schools designated as a transfer partner is University of the Arts.
And the cycle continues for the poor kids from PAFA who went to U. of the Arts.
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They’re down to every 7 years for the Western Association.
And there are interim reports, too, even for those where reaccreditation occurs every 10 years. It isn’t a once per decade parachute in.
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You make Ms Walk sound like Typhoid Mary…
Hussian School of Art just closed abruptly last year and I know of at least one student who then transferred to UArts and is now being uprooted again. https://www.hussiancollege.edu/
Such a shame for the community
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Not closing, but Lynchburg and Brandeis are having significant budget cuts.
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So many schools running budget deficits. I’m surprised Brandeis’ enrollment is down, considering this years’ protests. IIRC they extended deadlines including for any transfers looking to leave their current school.
As for U of Lynchburg, I would start with a name change (even though that’s the name of the city they are in.)
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I am totally surprised by the Brandeis situation!
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Brandeis seems to be making the cuts in a way that most academics would probably be pleased, though I, too, am surprised by the need to do so. As a parent, I prefer that a breadth of academic opportunities be retained for students to sample and explore, and it appears that Brandeis is prioritizing that. From the article, speaking of Brandeis:
Most of the cuts, which will be made by mid-June, involve staff and administrative positions, although some adjunct faculty may also see their jobs ended.
With respect to U. of Lynchburg, I am saddened, but not surprised, by how they are choosing to cut programs.
Academic programs were identified for closure on the basis of three criteria: financial sustainability, enrollment trends, and alignment with market demand. The university indicated existing programs would continue to be monitored on these dimensions going forward.
This is indeed a very pragmatic, business-like model that makes logical sense from a financial perspective. But, perhaps quixotically, I believe that educational institutions should also consider what is best for students’ intellectual development and what kind of breadth of knowledge they want their graduates to have. The presence of a physics major is one that I often use as one of my own internal assessments about the quality/rigor of an institution (excluding specialized schools like Pratt or conservatories).
Included among the undergraduate majors that will be phased out are business studies, community and nonprofit leadership, diversity strategies, management, music, music education, physics, religious studies, Spanish, Spanish education, special education, and theater.
Looking at Lynchburg’s existing majors and minors, it appears there will no longer be any foreign language majors offered, though at least it will be better than West Virginia as it seems that minors in German and Spanish will still (hopefully) be offered. I’m surprised by the unpopularity (or perhaps the economic feasibility, if the professors are too expensive to hire) of the business majors.
Yes, the name is quite unfortunate (the city was named after its founder, John Lynch, and not relating to lynching activities). Although Lynchburg is part of an area where we are considering relocating in the future, I don’t think I can bring myself to live in a town with that name. I suspect the university is similarly affected.
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Boston College has a Lynch School of Education and Human Development. I assume the Lynch family made a substantial donation to the school. I am not aware of any pressure to change that.
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Cutting into Arts programs because of “market demand” is a little disquieting. There seems to be an intangible societal benefit to the arts that is being ignored. This is a larger and deeper issue.
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Yes. But I would still change the name of the university.
The US has too many colleges/too many open seats at many colleges. Why wouldn’t supply and demand apply to these businesses?
I don’t disagree that there is societal benefit to the arts, but that’s a separate issue to waning demand/fewer students seeking degrees in a given major.
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The problem from the college’s and students’ point of view is that providing an intangible societal benefit does not pay the bills.
In economics, the concepts of public good and free rider may be used to describe that situation.
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My admittedly completely cynical—though honestly and earnestly held—take on this is that as colleges have turned more and more to individuals with business expertise to lead them both as presidents/chancellors and, perhaps more insidiously, as members of boards of regents, we’ve ended up with leaders who couldn’t entirely manage to stay with the times in the business world and had to find somewhere else to land. As a result, US postsecondary education is led more and more by those who have attitudes like thinking that Jack Welch’s ideas (e.g., the 10% rule) are the latest and greatest in management theory, or some other similar idiocy that’s already been demonstrated not to work in actual practice.
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