My take on it is that they’re in trouble. I know that they have cut programs already. Graduate program cuts signify to me that the corresponding undergraduate programs are going to be cut down the line … once the grad assistants are gone, the undergraduate programs will be too expensive to run.
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Interesting discussion on Northeastern University M&A strategy to expand… didn’t expect them to have 14 campuses
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London, Oakland and soon, New York City are the only campuses that Northeastern owns and houses undergraduate students for four years. The other 11 campuses are graduate campuses occupying leased space. The Nu In locations are separate institutions offering first semester students classes in an international setting.
As has been stated many times, if a student wants to attend the Boston campus freshman year and are offered an alternative location, they can consider it an adventure and attend or a denial and attend another college.
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Interesting article in the current Chronicle of Higher Education on signs that a college is in danger of closing (paywalled). A few quotes from it that jumped out at me:
- The actual number of closures is far below what many breathless media reports and even federal data sources claim to show (approximately 10-20 private nonprofit colleges each year out of approximately 2,000 institutions) [with an acknowledgment that they’re nonetheless painful for those affected]…
- I tracked 10 years of operating margins for private nonprofit colleges and found that 18 colleges posted losses at least eight times between fiscal years 2013 and 2022. Nine of these colleges have already closed or announced an upcoming closure, eight remain open, and one (Bacone College, in Oklahoma) has stopped enrolling new students. (You can see the full list here.) Many of these colleges have implemented substantial cuts in an effort to remain open.
- Frequent leadership turnover or excessive use of consultants to provide leadership [is a danger sign]. Leadership turnover is easy to see, but getting information on consultants may require examining trustee documents at public institutions and examining vendor payments in IRS Form 990 submissions for nonprofit institutions. Leadership turnover may not lead to closure, but each new leader may bring in their own to-do list of cuts to make to try to survive.
IMO the author is kind of a flawed messenger (he’s a faculty member at Tennessee who is vocally in favor of financial exigency being a much more commonly-used tool for administrators to use in making cuts, rather than being used as a last resort), but I will happily agree that he knows where to find and collect good data on the higher-ed sector.
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Drexel enrollment down, more changes coming. I don’t think Drexel is in danger of closing, but this reorg/combining of programs does seem to make some sense. I am sure some of their real estate has quite a bit of value:
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Some of the reasons cited for the drop in enrolment seem odd:
“Another early warning sign that enrollment was declining was the last-minute closure of a freshman residence hall, North Hall for renovations, only two months before the start of the fall quarter”
In Fall, 2023 a few weeks before students arrived, Northeastern was forced to close its ancient White Hall residence due to structural problems. Freshmen were quickly reassigned to nearby hotels and it did not affect enrolment in any way. Plans are already underway to demolish it and build a new residence. Aren’t there any surplus hotels in Center City/University City Philly?
And what does “club funding” have to do with enrolment?
Looks like Drexel did some poor planning.
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I took the article to mean that Drexel decided to close the dorm as a cost-saving measure once it became clear the school didn’t have enough incoming Freshman to fill all of its dorm space. In other words, closing the dorm was the result of declining enrolment, not the cause of it.
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Semi-related to this thread: Fitch Ratings predicts more downgrades of higher education institutions next year.
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So, yet another out of state university moves in! Unlike Northeastern (for now) Vandy is leasing the campus of General Theological Seminary (all 13 buildings) and keeping the seminary separate from Vandy (for now)… a 99 year lease!
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More on Brandeis’ problems.
Amid declining enrollment, Brandeis is in an intensifying budget crunch (boston.com)
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So, Brandeis and Yeshiva went to attract students who are Jewish to get them to transfer who felt uncomfortable at their campuses with the protests. Yeshiva is 80% Jewish while Brandeis is 35%. Seems that would have affected their freshman class. They gambled that they would get more transfer helping their student body. Seems it didn’t work out as planned…
To me Brandeis fell behind and although just like BC have started engineering to expand into STEM they seem to have not invested in expanding their student body as competition in Massachusetts has grown. In the 1990s they didn’t have to really compete with Boston University or Northeastern while now both schools have surpassed them in the undergrad population and their graduate programs are small while northeastern and BU have expanded their program. International students now look for 3 year OPT Stem graduate programs. I noticed even business schools are creating programs that would have approval for STEM with a 3 year OPT.
Hopefully they can turn the tide
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Yeshiva and Brandeis are so different and appeal to an entirely different cohort of Jewish students. Brandeis is home to more secular humanist students. Yeshiva’s appeal is to observant Conservative and Orthodox kids and their families.
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That is true and that’s why yeshiva had a jump in enrollment while Brandeis did not.
It’s a great school and wealthy enough to survive. Needs to take a few ideas from Babson, Bentley and even Umass Boston that has gone after international students
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Missed this acquisition by SP Jain Group… seems they will target Indian students wanting to study in the US as they have 6 campuses worldwide. Will be interesting to see how this will work out.
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Bard College at Simon’s Rock closing (Great Barrington, Mass). This was an early college option, not many of those left.
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Ten public no-fee high schools, all mid-Atlantic plus Cleveland and New Orleans. Three in NYC.
https://bhsec.bard.edu/our-network/
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They marketed themselves hard to my kids.
But the youngest two of mine went to a local public junior/senior “high school” that was (essentially) 100% dual enrollment. The ever-increasing emergence of that option was probably the slow-tolling death knell for Simon’s Rock.
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Bard should move the Longy School of Music to the main campus. Seems they just picked up too many schools/colleges
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I even remember them marketing pretty hard to me, ~30 years ago!
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It was a great option for the right student. Agreed that DE helped hasten the end. Sadly because I expect Simon’s Rock had more rigor than many CCs, and some students really benefitted from the structure and ability to live there.
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