Perhaps we can create a second thread? Keep the RIP one for colleges that have announced a closure and then perhaps create a second one called something like: College(s) Sustainability Discussion for when people want to talk about schools with accreditation issues, or financial downgrades, or significant cutbacks, etc? Since actual closures happen much less often than the discussion on sustainability-related questions for particular schools, then the RIP title wouldn’t appear as often in Latest Threads?
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OK I changed the title (anyone can, and someone else tweaked it again!) What are your thoughts on the current title?
How did the thread get off topic/hijacked anyway? How about we get back to talking about school closings/mergers. IMO its ok to also mention schools with significant financial/budget problems at risk of closing, but conversations about rankings and reviews belong elsewhere.
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Sustainability refers to environmental issues now, e.g net zero carbon. A better term would be “survivability.”
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How about “viability”?
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Thank you!!!
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It can, in many contexts, but not always.
Very confusing word honestly
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Maybe college news that’s not specifically about a closing or merger can should be posted to College Headlines?
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Classics is an interesting one – my father in law ran a small hedge fund and his preferred college hire profile was a Classics major from HYP. Because the big investment banks snapped up all the pristine hires. And it normally correlated with either fancy family, private high school, connections, etc., or incredible smarts from a public school.
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There are a lot of fabulous threads about successful people who were humanities majors. But this is the college closings thread. Can we please stay on topic? Thanks
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Nope. They may have marketed it well, but in the U.S., Kettering University has considered it a point of pride for its entire existence, beginning with its roots as General Motors Institute. And actually, this is a school that has beaten the odds - it somehow found a way to move from being financially supported by GM to becoming an independent school that is holding its own. It can be done, with the right people in charge.
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And that’s key.
And, to bring it back around to colleges in trouble, that seems to have been one of the problems at Tulsa.
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Said, because President Carson responded to many queries here and offered off line assistance. Seemed a great guy.
I know he’s liberal (or a democrat) and I think the school isn’t I suspect.
btw - Tulsa, the city, I don’t believe is overtly conservative. I’ve spent time there - it’s not much different people wise than other cities - although yes, it has Oral Roberts U.
The Tulsa Honors College: A Cautionary Tale | National Review
Nichols becomes first Black mayor of Tulsa in ‘historic and significant’ election • Oklahoma Voice
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Thank you for trying to bring this thread back on topic! It has jumped the shark (and it was just doing the weird scrolling/jumping around all over the place on the screen @CC_Sorin)
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Was Kettering ever considered a highly regarded academic school nationally? Regionally great hands-on engineering? Yep
Few sought out co-ops, as a top student, in the 80s/90s, unless maybe an engineer.
Growing up in the northeast, northeasten was not highly regarded for wealthy full pay (keep school afloat!!), and part of it was the coop-trade schools’ adjacent coop vibe.
That’s all changed
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My HS senior applied to UTulsa because they have an awesome cybersecurity program. I think that the university can turn things around. We have a couple more weeks until our kid gets a decision from them. They have really strong engineering, pre-law, and pre-health programs, too. AND this great ‘Cane Careers’ program where if you enroll in and participate in the program starting fall of freshman year (and do/participate in specific career-building activities each year), they guarantee that you’ll have either a job or a grad school acceptance w/in 6 months of graduation OR they’ll pay for a semester of tuition at a UTulsa graduate program.
U of A (Arizona) reported a drop in enrollment for Fall 2024, which was largely a result of U of A’s massive budgetary shortfall…which thus led to the then-college president leaving. Since then, they’ve got a new person running things, budget issues are getting resolved, and things are turning around.
Long winded way of me saying that I think it’s way too early to think that Tulsa is on the decline. They’ll turn things around.
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They are doing the right things. I hope it pays off long term for them.
In particular, this caught my eye:
Another change: La Salle has moved away from a “late aid” strategy, in which a college offers additional funding to families of admitted students in the spring in hopes of convincing them to enroll. “It just never works well,” says Nayor. “A lot of times when colleges use a late-aid strategy, they’re just throwing money at the wall, and it often happens because they haven’t done all the work in terms of communicating effectively with prospective students.”
This is something I swore by when working in my last job. My goal was to provide a workable aid package to begin with. The risk of waiting & “adding to” a package later is great … the best students (for the school) are often gone by then, having chosen another school. Getting to know students upfront who want to attend allows carefully crafted aid packages that can pay off. This is difficult for large schools to do, but LaSalle can do it & benefit.
It takes a lot to turn a school around, but this school seems to have as good a chance of success as is possible.
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A “late aid” strategy might also cause some potentially interested students not to apply because they used the net price calculator and did not like the result that did not reflect any “late aid”.
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First mover victory.
No doubt many kids pick the cheapest, regardless of reputation. Someone has to pay and not everyone can. But more can at a discounted school. And a school like La Salle, likely on fewer lists, likely only gets one bite at the apple whereas others like Baylor or Syracuse, might turn a few more heads with a late offer
Can they attract top professors given salaries are likely low relative to others ?
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