UChicago Braces for $220M Deficit

Colleges & Universities University of Chicago
121

JBS, you are correct that all of the Top 20 schools are building up their sexiness in the competition for eminence, but my point is this: if Chicago didn’t also copy best practices and benchmark itself to have the same level of amenities as its peers, it would have fallen hopelessly behind.

By reasonably matching (not necessarily exceeding) its peers’ sexiness, it has put itself in a position where its historical strengths and values (Noble Prize winning faculty, academic rigor and respect, free expression, etc.) now can tip in the edge in its favor by making it a first choice school. As you pointed out in the articles you posted, Chicago had a critical choice to make 25 years ago, it could continue along its path of just selling safety and reliability or it could make a determined effort to get sexier, faster, and more fun to drive. Because it spent the money and changed some aspects of its stodgy culture, it became sufficiently sexy and fun to drive so that now all of its other exceptional qualities tip the scale.

122

This is the blurb on the UChicago website re: being need-blind:

UChicago is a need-blind institution, which means we make admissions decisions independent of a family’s financial circumstances. Additionally, through “No Barriers” and “UChicago Empower”—our comprehensive plans for increasing access to college, supporting students in receiving an empowering education, and preparing them for lifelong success—UChicago offers need-based financial aid that meets 100% of your family’s demonstrated need in the form of grants (which do not need to be repaid) instead of student loans.

This blurb is pretty much the same as a bunch of institutions’ blurbs. It is sufficiently vague to allow for whatever the schools need to do to “sculpt a class”. “Making admissions decisions” is not the same as “admitting”. Doing a first round of filtering who is worthy of admission without considering aid is AN admission decision. The language does not say ALL admissions decisions are made without considering aid budget. That leaves room for the aid budget to guide the final cut.

Also, “meeting demonstrated need” are infamous weasel words. UChicago, Princeton, wherever, get to decide what your demonstrated needs are. It is a black box calculation, so if an institution needs to trim aid to get within budget, they can do it and still claim to meet your “demonstrated need”.

UChicago is special, but not its financial aid policy. The policy is sufficiently adaptable, as is all of the elite schools’ policies, to address whatever will happen because of covid.

The real question is whether the applicant pool is sufficiently deep and yield sufficiently high to provide the same “sculpted class” it has been shooting for these days if the FA budget is reduced. That will be a function of how well its infrastructure and marketing investments pay off. If the caliber of students stays high - that is what UChicago is selling, after all - it will ride the storm. Good thing UChicago has completed so much of their investment plans already. They are in a far better position now for this Covid thing to happen than if it happened 5-10 years ago. I don’t have an econ degree from UChicago, or anything, but that does seem to be the core of it.

123

@Zoom10 , you’re still not taking my point and not addressing it. I used “free speech” as an instance of a policy that I knew you agreed with and asked you to consider whether you support that policy merely because it makes for eminence. You let yourself off that challenge by asserting that “all universities support free speech”, though you went on to give several instances of very contrary actions taken at some very eminent universities. You seemed to think it sufficient merely to give lip service to the idea of free speech. Ah, if only I were Socrates I would make you see the error of your ways! You put me in mind of Protagoras in Plato’s dialogue of that name. A word for this sort of argumentation has come down to us from the Greeks - sophistry.

Let me try again. Let us specify that free speech policy is not simply verbiage but would imply taking certain actions in situations of the sort you described. Let us suppose that those actions, no matter how consistent with the Chicago Statement, had the effect of lessening the eminence of the University (something I do not believe, by the way, but play along with me here). Suppose a public lecture given by someone like Charles Murray at the invitation of a conservative campus political group. Suppose that protesters do more than merely protest - they attempt to prevent the talk. Suppose, unlike at Middlebury, the University employs its campus police to restrain the protesters so that the talk can go on. Finally, suppose that the fallout from this action is that the reputation of the University is harmed, perhaps because it thus became associated with right-wing causes and that students of progressive inclination began to avoid it. Neither you nor I believes this would actually happen, but it is hardly beyond probability that it could (a frequently asked question on this board by prospective students is whether the U of C is too conservative). And remember - this is a thought experiment: you don’t get off the hook by asserting factual improbability or telling me that it’s “a false dichotomy.”

Thus, my dear Protagoras, answer my question, please: In such a case should the University abandon its free speech policy both as word and deed? If you say it should, then I will believe you are sincere when you say that “eminence” is your god and that “values” are its servants.

124

And price fixing!

125

U Chicago’s FA policy is very special, in one important way. In the case of divorced parents, the school does not require financial information from the non-custodial parent (ncp).

https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/cost-aid/applying-aid

This is a potentially huge benefit (speaking about FA) for students with divorced parents who live with the one who makes a lower income. At nearly all other private schools, they require financial info from the ncp parent (and new spouse as applicable)

Only one other school (AFAIK), Vandy, has the same policy.

126

@JBStillFlying - I believe you are incorrectly correlating “first choice” with the reason Chicago has a sky high retention rate.

What’s the reason these schools have high retention rates? Is it because at all of these schools - from Harvard to WUSTL to Tufts to Lehigh - are the first choice for so many students, and 95%+ of them can’t imagine going elsewhere?

No! These schools have high retention rates because senior admins TELL their staffs - we need to have high retention rates! You better accept students with the intention of graduating virtually all of them. That’s the process.

And, JB, why do they do this? You are correct - it’s because of “competition” but not in any overly simplistic sense. It’s because these schools - collectively - have agreed that the best way to compete for eminence is to sacrifice at the altar of US News.

Note the schools that don’t play this game - the military academies, Reed, St. John’s, etc. Their “numbers” look very different (Reed, for instance, has a 88% retention rate, and West Point is around 80%.)

It’s not that these schools don’t compete along other metrics. It’s just they’ve decided they won’t compete in the particularly perverse way US News encourages.

Look at other examples of competitive enterprises - the Navy Seals or Green Berets. They have a 40%+ drop out rate. Is that because they’re not the participants’ first choices? All these examples aren’t anomalies - they demonstrate competitive organizations that choose to value very different characteristics, and have different goals.

Here’s an example of different processes:

West Point: we take the very best cadets we can, and we put them through the ringer. Those who endure are (literally) battle tested and proven.

Harvard/UChicago: we take the very best students we can, and then seek to graduate virtually all of them.

See? Very different approaches and goals.

Simply saying “it’s because of competition,” or because “we’re a first choice school!” are woefully incomplete answers.

127
  • Except that no one says that's the reason they are attending UChicago. What the College actually did, Zoom, was make the campus environment more pleasant and livable. It also began to market itself quite heavily for the first time. And it revised the Core in order to accommodate things like study abroad. That's like Lexus making its seat cushions more comfortable and adding some cup-holders, introducing or changing up its advertising, and then redesigning the current model to include a larger trunk space or better leg room in the back. What Lexus actually did was change the model. UC didn't do that.
128

Two observations:

  • When UChicago introduced "no barriers" it SIGNFICANTLY reduced debt load on current and incoming students. The data show that.
  • It also, within a year - but still prior to going ED - they reduced the number of incoming students on grants and scholarships (!). The data show that as well.

So OBVIOUSLY, they were admitting with an eye on the FA budget. In fact, they had always done so. But “no loans” is, in part, funded by cross-subsidization. There’s no mystery about that. The question is whether they admit with an eye on your family’s financial statement. I don’t believe they do that, nor do they need to. As UChicago became a school of world-wide prominence, many top full-pay students were applying. That’s a big change from prior decades.

Also, remember - they are need aware for internationals and they’ve increased the proportion of internationals in recent years (as have pretty much all colleges and universities). The lack of internationals going forward would likely do more harm to UChicago’s budget - not to mention its intellectual environment - than Covid.

While we have no idea what will happen going forward, in general UChicago actually DOES have a special financial aid program. The school has been more generous than other schools, as several families have attested. Our family has personal experience with this issue. My recommendation would be to experience the financial aid program first - THEN make an assessment. Zimmer has pledged a commitment to current and incoming students. I would expect that at minimum.

What the incoming class will look like in terms of profile should be available, on schedule, this fall. I’m sure the numbers will be scrutinized for deviations from it’s “sculpted” past :wink:

129

Collusion is a huge problem. That’s why DOJ is looking into ED policies :neutral:

130

JBS, Chicago didn’t change elements of its model that made it great to begin with but not prestigious/desirable in the minds of the luxury student buyers, rather it adopted other elements of the Ivy model that now made it both great AND prestigious/desirable among a much greater proportion of luxury student buyers.

131

Agree with @Zoom10 And, @JBStillFlying we’ve covered this quite comprehensively in another thread. Just like the Lexus/McKinsey example Zoom provides, McKinsey literally told Chicago to compete better, it needed to emulate the Ivy League’s practices.

The Lexus example, actually, is quite apt. How much did Chicago pay McKinsey to say “be more like Harvard”?

(And note, JB, yes, yes, McKinsey never told Chicago to throw its core engine out the window - rather, they were told to make other changes - to treat their students more like ivy league students, etc. Part of that, I’m sure, included worshipping at the eminence ranking table that so many schools covet - US News.)

132
  • So, @Cue7 - you do realize that your alma mater seemingly had a policy very similar to West Point's if you just look at things like attrition. And yet you have been quite critical when you personally had to witness that at UChicago. Odd that you would be pushing for it now.
  • Sorry to be picky but correcting your stats: West-Point as of a few years ago was 97% freshman retention rate and 85% six-year grad rate. You are correct that they are near an 80% four-year grad rate; however, I'm just not sure about their curricular program, which might be best done in a 4+-year environment. Heavy engineering, right? That's yet another reason not to be comparing it to UC. It turns out that West-Point's stats are very similar to Cal Tech's.
  • The person responsible for correlating "first choice" with "sky high retention rate" is NOT JBStillFlying. It's Boyer. And Behnke. As I said, you might disagree with them. IMO, they are competent authority, which is why I quoted them.
  • Your reasoning is as incomplete as mine! Having high retention rates because you need to isn't the answer either. "Retention" is a consequence of the actual goals which include admitting the most qualified "right-fit" class so that they can thrive, go out into the world and make an impact, and engage with the university over the long term to help with its mission of remaining a premier (dare I say "eminent"?) research university. It's easy to increase "retention" merely by giving everyone A's or letting up on the coursework, but they aren't doing that at U of C. If anything, the course of study has become even more challenging (just look at the latest 180's math sequence). Therefore, if retention has increased significantly over the decades (which is has) then that can only be because they are admitting better-qualified "right-fit" students.

Diermeier said it best:

“Not everyone would benefit. This is a demanding place. You have to bring quite a bit to be flourishing at the University of Chicago; not everybody can flourish here. And we want it that way, that’s the way it’s set up. It’s a place for a particular type of student and, as Agnes* could testify, it’s hard to identify them. And yes, it’s true that there are many more that could benefit from this university than we have space for, but we try very, very, hard to pick the type of students who would benefit (the most) from the University of Chicago. They’re intellectually curious, they’re engaged, they have a lively mind . . .these are all words that we use, but we try that very hard. And every university should do that. They should have a clear sense of their own purpose and then they should try to pick the students that would benefit the most from that, that would basically have the best chance of flourishing in that environment and then have an impact once they leave. That’s what we want.” - Night Owl conversation.

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@JBStillFlying I’m not pushing for high attrition now. Rather, I’m encouraging you to look beyond the “we’re the first choice!” reasoning that explains the higher retention.

To me, retention has less to do with “right fit” and more to do with the atmosphere on the ground AND what the admin cares about. If West Point cared about attrition the same way as Harvard or Chicago, you can bet its numbers would change.

What do you think is the driver? For me, it’s institutional policy, with an eye to improving eminence (rankings/etc.). Chicago has a lower accept rate, higher yield, higher retention, etc. b/c senior admins TOLD their staffs to meet these goals. It can be as simple as “we need higher SAT scores!” or “we need to graduate these kids!” In higher ed, often, the tail wags the dog.

Again, as the NY Times article and others assert, in the world of higher ed - we seem to have the flowery “public” message, and then, in private, the reality of how the sausage is made.

I’m encouraging you to give credence to the more cynical process that’s at work here.

I mean really, Deirmeier came up with a document entitled “our ratio of resources to eminence” - how much more clear does Chicago need to be in its internal documents - the ones that arrive under the Maroon’s door, as @Marlowe1 likes to say?

134
  • Will agree with the "luxury student buyer's part" since that is a phenom happening at all higher ed institutions. Education is a superior good so families desire more/better as income increases. True for K - 12 as well as college.
  • It wasn't desirable in the minds of student-buyers because it wasn't known. Marketing and active recruiting did a lot to remedy that. Behnke was able to increase enrollment quite a bit before all the amenities were built. And Nondorf's "explosion" of applications had more to do with his own "imaginative communications strategies" as Boyer deems it ("marketing genius" to the rest of us). UChicago needed the amenities because once students started visiting in droves they were expecting the basics they saw elsewhere. Your marketing message completely deflates if your customers are forced to tour Pierce Hall. :wink: But other than that - it's the message that brings 'em in, not the gym (although the gym is really cool and Logan is downright impressive). Edit to add: And it's career placement that probably helps to seal the deal because parents are more at ease about the value of a liberal arts education.

While the amenities clearly helped, the timing of application increases corresponds more to plain and simple messages and hard work to get the university known to families looking at elite institutions.

135

Marlowe, I’m still not understanding what point you are trying to make with your questions about free expression and eminence but I’ll do my best to answer (I used “free speech” as an instance of a policy that I knew you agreed with and asked you to consider whether you support that policy merely because it makes for eminence.).

My short answer is eminence is the primary purpose of elite colleges and free expression, especially when actions match the words, is a critical value that potentially enhances eminence while the abandonment of upholding free expression harms eminence. You seem to ask: what if there were a situation where upholding free expression causes a college to loose eminence, would I still support free expression or would I instead abandon that value to preserve eminence? If that is what you are asking me, I again say that this is a false dichotomy because your question assumes a cause and effect relationship between preserving free expression and loss of eminence. That would be like asking: if a college had less money instead of more money, would you prefer the less money situation if the college’s eminence was higher?

In my example of money, the reason the hypothetical question is a false dichotomy is because it assumes less money somehow caused the college to have more eminence. I think anyone would confidently assert that more money is ALWAYS better than less money. Now, how the money is spent is a different issue but one would always prefer more money to less. Could there be a scenario where a college loses money but its eminence increases. Sure, but that would not be because it has less money, rather there are many other variables besides just money that contribute to eminence and a college’s eminence could also very well increase even it violated its principles of free expression because other variables besides its abandonment of free expression were in play. Statistics 101: correlation/association does NOT equal causation.

Now let’s look at some empirical facts what happened after Chicago issued its infamous and gratuitous letter in 2016 to the incoming Class of 2020: “You will find that we expect members of our community to be engaged in rigorous debate, discussion and even disagreement. At times this may challenge you and even cause discomfort. Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.”

Fact: despite grumblings from some quarters, the overwhelming response to the letter was positive and over 70 colleges endorsed the Chicago principles: https://www.thefire.org/chicago-statement-university-and-faculty-body-support/

Fact: this letter was issued while Chicago was still in the early days of its capital campaign; rather than causing any slowdown in donations, Chicago was able to raise its target beyond $5 billion which it concluded with smashing success. Were some prospective donors offended? Perhaps, but a far larger number were probably thrilled and gave more.

Fact: despite having a study body that is majority liberal like all of its peers, applications to the College reached all time highs between 2016-2019. Were some prospective students offended? Perhaps, but a far larger number applied.

Fact: in 2017, one year after the letter, the New York Times of all media outlets published an opinion piece that Zimmer is the best university president in America precisely because Chicago was out of step compared to its peers: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/opinion/robert-zimmer-chicago-speech.html

So no, there would never be a scenario where abandonment of free expression causes more eminence because it is universally acknowledged that free expression is vital to the mission of any university. Even university administrations that are weak and hypocritical on this point would never try to claim that their eminence would be enhanced if they relaxed their commitment to free expression.

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^ But @Zoom10 at #135, isn’t there a question as to why it was such a big deal for UChicago to generate such a letter? Yes, it helped clarify what Chicago was about - and even what a university education should be about. And it’s important to note that application numbers did actually decline 10% following that letter (although UC also introduced its unconventional ED policy that year with little fanfare or preparation which probably also took some families by surprise. It sure did for us).

Why did UC feel it was best to release such a letter? Some in this forum have claimed it was little more than a marketing gimmick and/or something to appease their rich politically conservative donor base. Those of us with ties to academia who have seen some of the sharp deviations from free expression that were occurring at the time (some of which are less well-known but equally disturbing) have a different viewpoint on the matter.

What is your viewpoint on why they did it?

137

Fun fact: Bret Stephens is a UChicago alum. I’m not saying it drove him to write the article. In fact, Stephens comes across sometimes as a contrarian.

138

JBS, my view is that Chicago saw an opportunity to further distinguish itself from its competitors to increase its eminence. Now, this does NOT mean that I think the letter was just a “marketing gimmick,” rather I think Chicago’s admin and other parts of its community were (rightfully) dismayed and shocked at what was going on around them and they saw both an opportunity and need for principled leadership to reaffirm its longstanding value of free expression by taking a bold stand against their peers who were caving to their snowflakes. The fact that this proactive letter also enhanced Chicago’s eminence because it was a sorely needed breath of fresh air was a secondary consequence, and the fact that this came from Chicago, a serious place well respected for its contrarian thinking and academic leadership, made the letter particularly credible and impactful.

Zimmer debunked the counterargument of inclusion perfectly in the NYT article:

If you can’t speak freely, you’ll quickly lose the ability to think clearly. Your ideas will be built on a pile of assumptions you’ve never examined for yourself and may thus be unable to defend from radical challenges. You will be unable to test an original thought for fear that it might be labeled an offensive one. You will succumb to a form of Orwellian double-think without even having the excuse of living in physical terror of doing otherwise.

That is the real crux of Zimmer’s case for free speech: Not that it’s necessary for democracy (strictly speaking, it isn’t), but because it’s our salvation from intellectual mediocrity and social ossification. In a speech in July, he addressed the notion that unfettered free speech could set back the cause of “inclusion” because it risked upsetting members of a community.

“Inclusion into what?” Zimmer wondered. “An inferior and less challenging education? One that fails to prepare students for the challenge of different ideas and the evaluation of their own assumptions? A world in which their feelings take precedence over other matters that need to be confronted?”
These are not earth-shattering questions. But they are the right ones, and they lay bare the extent to which the softer nostrums of higher ed today shortchange the intended beneficiaries.

I know for a fact that donations to Yale from big money donors dropped after Yale’s halloween incident and there were bitter complaints to the Yale trustees. I’m guessing this also contributed to Yale’s delay in being able to move forward with its next capital campaign as it has been stuck in silent mode for many years: http://features.yaledailynews.com/blog/2019/04/26/up-close-woodbridge-loyalists-question-saloveys-leadership/

139

Zoom, you keep sliding off my question: If the free speech policy were an unpopular one and if it therefore did not enhance Chicago’s eminence, would you advocate that it be abandoned? Or, to put that question more abstractly, is the policy a good one because it is good on its own terms or must it enhance eminence in order to be good? You don’t want to answer that question because you insist that it’s both those things and you don’t want to entertain any scenario in which any inherent value could ever come in to conflict with your mission of eminence. I am asking you to imagine that there could be such a conflict. It is no answer to my question to keep telling me that there could never be a conflict. Anyhow, I’ll stop torturing you.

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^ @Zoom10 at #138: Distinguish itself from trends impacting other universities - agree. Increase it’s “eminence?” - Disagree.

UChicago actually has a history of getting burned for sticking to the principles of free expression. Boyer wrote a treatise about it and you and your son will, hopefully, receive a copy this summer compliments of the College. So it’s walked the walk. I think this is what Marlowe is getting at. It would do so again if it needed to, even if it lost donations. Your earlier post #120 implies that universities, for the most part, consider the issue of free expression “political” at its core. If so, then trustees need only perform the hazard-function exercise of figuring out which messaging minimizes pissing off the donor base. While UChicago obviously does care about its donor base, the question becomes at what point is the donor base more important than sticking to principle (in this case, the principle of free expression as the core of a research university).

Sure, the response seemed to be positive overall in 2016 and following. The conversation on this forum was quite interesting as there were several parents who were outright distressed by the letter (presumably their kids were too). There were a family or two who declared that they were NOT looking at UC that year as a result. (I think one said she would no longer “allow her D to apply.” To me that pretty well sums up the contrasting mindset on this issue. Speech control not just on college campuses, apparently). A good number of UC faculty (though by no means the majority) were also distressed and IIRC they formulated their own “letter.” The president of Northwestern went as far as to make reference to UC in his “Welcome Speech” to the incoming class - and not in a laudatory way! So there was some blowback. Even if other universities happened to agree with the Chicago Principles, some were pretty critical of the No Safe Spaces letter.

And it’s not clear at all that UC didn’t suffer financially. We don’t know, for instance, what the Capital Campaign would have returned had the faculty committee simply just returned its conclusions and Jay Ellison hadn’t issued his “shot across the bow” beginning with Class of 2020. What the letter DID do was clarify what UC was actually about. That helped people who care about that sort of stuff understand where to apply for their college. Turns out there are a lot of such people.