Dear collegecarla : Thank you for the warm welcome. Early in June 2013, I posted here on College Confidential saying that after some 1000 posts, it was time to “pass the torch” to allow a new generation of on-site parents to offer their contributions and observations regarding Boston College as time would decay the authenticity of my information. While the post was certainly longer than that sound bite, it was deleted from the Boston College board as the moderators prohibit “farewell” messages as being off-topic. While some Boston College loyalists saw the post, many did not; hence, to many, I disappeared. (Truth is that I had little new to say.)
Fast forward to mid-2015 : Recently, I accepted an Associate Professor position at a major New York university that is at the intersection of the academic business squeeze of attracting students, determining discount rates (scholarships), decreasing available student pools on a regional basis, and competing to provide new and exciting on-campus facilities and relevant coursework.
WIthin the last four years (two at Boston College, two post-BC in this new academic role), I have seen some tremendous changes in the business of academia :
[1] the spotlight on a national debt load of $1.3T which will potentially prevent this entire generation of college graduates from participating in the general economy (housing, autos, consumerism),
[2] the unintended “double bubble” created by need-blind and financial aid driven models where classic middle class families ($100,000 cash assets, $150,000 income, own home) are forced to downgrade their college expectations while higher and lower income families are less impacted,
[3] despite a perceived very slow economy (regardless of revised measurements on unemployment), the cost of college education has continually risen at a rate substantially above CPI during the last five years,
[4] defining a three-year BA/BS program to contain full costs, along with an increasing use of on-line education for core courses, serving to create a more streamlined delivery of a major field of study at the cost of well-rounded liberal arts education,
[5] the role of the NCAA and the business implications of “student-athletes” which undermines obtaining a true education, and
[6] the investments made to run a campus at the expense of faculty, the increased usage of adjuncts designed to fill gap after gap in scheduling, and the ultimate wandering from delivering core degree competency.
These topics are not Boston College centric although schools in BC’s cohort group with smaller endowments than Ivy League competitors will certainly get caught in many of these situations over time.
As a result, collegecarla, I have rejoined the discussion to not only offer continued positive advice about Boston College, but to bring the needed evolution of college as we know it into the discussion. Something must change when quality schools like NYU announce a $72,000 per year freshman year price tag. NYU is not an outlier but a leading edge as others will follow. The challenge for private education will not end with this essay. Over time, we will offer ideas to the BC and broader community in line with these six challenges.
So, you can argue that I have a self-created “revised mission” to continue to inform the BC community with intelligent well-informed discourse. However, the impact of that spend, immediately after your student receives that sheep-skin, also deserves our attention. That new perspective is what I can offer first hand to the community.