When I think Simmons I think nursing and health adjacent majors (bio, psych, social work) not econ for undegrad. Given their physical location, I wonder if they are considering doubling down on nursing, etc. given demand overall. Though that is high intensity / cost degree to run and hard to get profs… tricky. (And agree about its focus on grad students as noted above).
2 Likes
Perhaps the new restrictions on professional degrees (nursing is not one) will impact their future - if you can’t borrow, how can you attend ?
Very sad.
6 Likes
So the government’s response to the huge shortage of nurses is to make it more difficult for people to get nursing degrees?
8 Likes
As usual, follow the money. They want to cap federal loans for these degrees so students have no choice but to borrow from private student loan lenders.
7 Likes
But the end result will be to push people away from the career.
7 Likes
This could affect poat-bachelor’s degrees other than the named examples in the relevant legislation (ABSN, MSN, DNP are not among the named examples). Being reclassified as “graduate” rather than “professional” degrees reduces the amount that the student can borrow.
ADN and BSN would not be affected by this change, although other changes could affect such programs.
5 Likes
The “merger” word has been mentioned regarding Simmons. Some think Simmons may merge with neighboring Northeastern or BU. A merger with Tufts has also been mentioned. BU would be the most likely as BU already has schools of social work and allied health. It would also allow BU to reestablish a nursing school to replace the one they transferred to Northeastern in 1987. The library science program would also need to find a new home. Despite the overabundance of colleges in Massachusetts, Simmons has the only library school in the state.
8 Likes
It is a very good point, too, 
And Simmons library school was one of the first in the country to recognize multi-media, digital, online as an actual discipline which librarians needed to learn, embrace and innovate– not just “oh, someday Google may replace reference texts”.
6 Likes
I am wondering how this all worked out for you and your daughter? We are also from Ohio and my daughter is considering Drew. We are interested in the experiencesnof out of state kids. Also, was it easy to get her to and from campus? Does she mostly fly? Thanks!
The classification reduces the amount a student can borrow from the Feds. Students can still go to non-Federal sources to take out educational loans. It will be interesting to see which lenders market to these students, what their terms look like, and if they will create any new offerings. These lenders are looking at a large increase in their market so I’m sure they smell money. Some new offerings might be good, some not so much.
1 Like
Although with one fewer major lender (the government) looking for their business, it is likely that the average borrower among those affected will see a worse offering.
3 Likes
According to College Navigator - Simmons University , Simmons’ largest undergraduate programs in terms of numbers of graduates in a recent class are:
- 96 Registered Nursing/Registered Nurse
- 47 Family Practice Nurse/Nursing
- 47 Exercise Science and Kinesiology
- 27 Biopsychology
- 26 Psychology, General
- 22 Social Work
- 18 Political Science and Government, General
- 13 Speech Communication and Rhetoric
- 13 Dietetics/Dietitian
For comparison, the majors proposed to be cut:
- 2 Accounting
- 4 Economics, General
- 1 Philosophy (guessing that this is what the “Humanities BA” major is, since there is no major in philosophy)
- 1 Physics
- 1 Spanish Language and Literature
4 Likes
I apologize if this isn’t allowed here (perhaps too political - I’m happy to delete), but The Onion is “reporting” on this latest change in nursing classification as well.
4 Likes
not sure if I want to laugh or cry or both.
7 Likes
The bottom line is that federal loans for graduate programs have been drastically changed. The annual unsubsidized loan amount remains the same for graduate programs, $20,500. The Grad Plus loan has been totally eliminated, though, so students will need to borrow private loans to make up the shortfall (remember, they need to borrow for tuition, fees and living expenses). This puts the student in the position of having to be able to qualify for private loans or get a co-signer. Repayment terms under federal loans (including the now-defunct Grad Plus) are better than those of private lenders, PSLF doesn’t apply to private loans, and regular forgiveness doesn’t apply to private loans.
Students in programs designated “professional” are able to borrow up to $50,000 in unsubsidized loans annually, which new and is an increase (but again, they won’t have Grad Plus loans anymore). This is not exactly great for those in programs like medicine. However, it’s very helpful to have the higher limit for unsubsidized loans, which is it is a big deal for programs to be designated as professional. Those programs left out don’t necessarily make sense.
4 Likes
Legislation that originally authorized professional school loan programs gave a list of examples of professional school programs, but did not state or imply that those were the only such programs that could be eligible. It looks like the current administration wants to end the professional school loan programs for all except those named examples.
(Nursing programs are not among the named programs, but have historically been included, as have some other kinds of post bachelor’s programs.)
2 Likes
The issue in financial aid is that vague terms don’t work. When a term is vague, like professional programs, the term must be defined. And only programs (down to CIP codes) that are named will be considered for that aid. Schools have to report by program for every student, including changing program in the federal system any time the student changes their program (e.g., an MFA student with a Sculpture designation who changes to MFA with an Industrial Design designation must have the program change reported).
Every financial aid professional understands this … knowing full well that if the legislation does not specifically include a group, it is therefore not included (because the legislation excludes it). This is why the financial aid community pushed for the included programs to be named - and fought to get additional programs included that were originally left out.
3 Likes
Interesting, and kind of scary, article that came out yesterday in the Chronicle of Higher Education on the University of Tulsa’s massive budget issues and the history behind them (paywalled), titled “The Ambition Trap”.
I thought it would be particularly interesting for this thread because they get mentioned so frequently on CC because of the incredibly generous aid packages they give high-achieving students—my C25 could have attended for $0, and possibly even have ended up making money from going to college. And while UTulsa isn’t in danger of closing anytime soon—it has a billion dollar endowment to work with—it isn’t in a great financial place right now, in part because of those fabulous merit scholarship packages driving down tuition revenue.
Some quotes from the (fairly long) article:
A university spokesperson…said, “over the past three years, there was significant, unbudgeted spending without corresponding revenue growth. Though UTulsa reached a balanced budget at the end of 2021, today it faces a substantial operating deficit.”
Throughout the meeting, the name of Brad R. Carson, who became president in 2021 and stepped down in May, was never mentioned. But multiple faculty members present said the message was clear: “We were told that it was a Carson-administration problem,” said Daniel Walden, an applied assistant professor in the Honors College, of the deficit. But he didn’t buy it. Tulsa had had money problems before Carson arrived…Carson had been the latest to stake his presidency on a moonshot: turning the private institution, which had a billion-dollar endowment, but just 3,850 students, into an R1 powerhouse. Now that plan had been torn up, said Rick Dickson, an alumnus and former athletic director who’d taken over as interim president.
Carson also sought to raise Tulsa’s regional and national profile with a series of splashy hires. He recruited Jennifer A. Frey from a tenured position in philosophy at the University of South Carolina to turn the longstanding honors program into a full-fledged college, and offered generous scholarships to National Merit semifinalists to entice them to attend. He hired award-winning journalist Ted Genoways to start a literary magazine; a podcast and annual festival soon also took root. To lead a new Center for Heterodox Economics, Carson tapped Clara E. Mattei of the New School. There were questions about how much Carson’s moves were costing the university, Prudlo said, but he felt the expenses were justified. Tulsa had taken a slide during the True Commitment years — its U.S. News & World Report ranking [had] dropped from 87th among national universities in 2018 to 143rd in 2021.
Two decades of the university’s audited financial statements show that Tulsa had run operating deficits in almost every year since the Great Recession, cresting with a $26-million shortfall in 2016. Enrollment, too, had slid by nearly a quarter between 2014 and 2022, and net tuition revenue sank nearly 37 percent in the same period, adjusted for inflation.
By 2024, skepticism of Carson’s methods was growing in some corners of campus, including from faculty members who complained he was making decisions without adequate faculty input. While revenue had grown by 25 percent since 2021, his first year on the job, total expenses had risen by 38 percent over the same period. Tulsa had ended the first three years of his presidency with a surplus, but the 2024 fiscal year ended with a deficit of more than $15 million. After growing for the first few years of his presidency, net revenue from tuition, when adjusted for inflation, had dropped by 15 percent since the year he took office. Freshman enrollment was projected to be 877 in 2022 and 932 in 2023, according to the draft presentation given to the three board members. Instead, actual full-time, first-year enrollment came in far lower — at just 585 and 559, respectively.
Meanwhile, the [anonymous, for fear of reprisal] professor said, “we were being told internally that tuition revenue was growing” and that the full scholarships being offered to National Merit semifinalists were raising Tulsa’s profile, attracting new students who were paying more. But when the professor and several colleagues took a closer look at tax documents Tulsa filed with the IRS and its publicly audited financial statements, they had questions. “You see the revenue going down, especially tuition revenue. Money that was moving from restricted to unrestricted use, moving out of the endowment without any clear explanation as to why,” the professor said.
8 Likes
I wondered why Pres Carson left.
At one point, their mini bonds were I wanna say BAA3 or just short of junk. Made me wonder.
He gave a surplus - good. But those are crazy attendance drops. He’s liberal but I know the school wants to take a classical bent.
Here’s the most recent bond action. Still investment grade
Moody’s Ratings affirms University of Tulsa, OK Baa3 ratings; outlook revised to negative
“Moody’s Ratings (Moody’s) has affirmed the Baa3 issuer and revenue bond ratings on the University of Tulsa, OK. The revenue bonds were issued through the Tulsa Industrial Authority, Oklahoma. The University of Tulsa had roughly $116 million of outstanding total debt for fiscal year 2024.”
Very interesting. Thanks for posting.
1 Like