One of the colleges we are visiting - Monday, ironically - is on track to be placed on fiscal watch. The board announced a bunch of cuts yesterday (yet to be approved by the state) including to the program D is interested in. That program is actually at the bottom of the list of cuts, but it’s there. Believe me, I will be asking the hard questions. It is a smaller state school that over the past couple years overspent wildly - those administrators are gone.
I went back and forth this morning on whether to even do the visit. It is two hours away and we are staying overnight to combine it with a touristy thing we’ve always wanted to do the next day. So I guess I lean towards keeping things the way they are and seeing what’s going on. When I called to arrange all this they couldn’t do enough for us, so maybe on the micro level things will look different.
I am very risk-averse, however. I’d rather spend more on a program that will still be intact and respected in five or six years rather than roll the dice. So part of me thinks this visit is a waste, while another part thinks it’s just another data point in the grand college comparison. I don’t know whether to mention it to D - maybe things will right themselves and she’ll hate it anyway, lol.
Oh no! I am going to have to investigate to see which one, as I think you and I are in the same state and I need to find out if any of the schools that will be on my boys’ lists are affected.
If it is a school your daughter is seriously considering, I would probably still make the visit to at least see if your daughter actually likes the school. If she doesn’t like it … problem solved.
It would also give you an opportunity to assess how they handle your questions. If it were me, I would want to know exactly what cuts were going to be made, and to which academic programs, career placement programs, extracurricular programs and student-life programs. If my son’s anticipated major was affected in any way, shape or form, that would probably be a deal-breaker for me. Do they have projections about how the cuts will affect class size, the number of professors versus adjuncts versus TAs that will be teaching classes while your daughter is there, how much tuition and fees would increase more in the next few years due to the school’s fiscal status, etc.? If financial aid or scholarships are an issue, how those would be affected? If I detected too much uncertainty in the school’s responses, that would trouble me. And I would also be checking out the condition of campus. If the buildings, landscaping, etc look like they haven’t been well maintained for a period of time, that would signal to me that the fiscal issues have been going on awhile and might be harder to resolve.
A program or major that is a candidate for being cut may be one where there are only a few students. You may want to investigate how many students graduate in that major each year.
Personally, I wouldn’t risk it, especially if it’s near the bottom of the list. There is a potential that she will start the program and have difficulty transferring credits should the program go under before she graduates.
It is certainly raises very big red flag but there is time to get more information and figure things out between now and next May when a college decision needs to be made. Since you have it planned, I’d visit, ask the hard questions, and then enjoy your day as a tourist. Let your D know in advance that if you don’t hear the right answers to your questions that the school will be a no-go regardless of how much she may like it.
I would not risk it. First, I would be concerned that your student might not be able to finish their degree and will lose credits and time if they need to transfer out. Secondly, you want to get as much bang for your buck for your degree. The optimal situation is for a school that you attended years ago to actually go up in rankings over the years so that you reap the award of the school having a better reputation and name recognition today. The worse case scenarios are if the school drastically dips in rankings/ reputation or if it closes and is forgotten.
Additionally, I would certainly question the quality of education a failing institution could provide on so many levels. Budget cuts, fewer class options, inferior facilities, a drain of the best students and best professors due to uncertainly and plummeting reputation.
I wouldn’t, not in a million years. Even if it limps along with occasional infusions from alumni, the cuts would affect the school in obvious ways. It wouldn’t be able to attract new stellar faculty, and any stars among the professors would be tempted to find greener pastures elsewhere.
There were cuts across the board, but nursing got away with less than most departments. I will find out exactly what the cuts are, hopefully, on Monday. The only thing I was able to find is “nursing site visits” will be decreased or done differently … which doesn’t mean anything to me.
I don’t think Wright State is going anywhere. I could be wrong, but I generally wouldn’t be as concerned with a state school folding as I would a private, like Antioch did a few years ago.
IIRC Wright State originally was going to be a branch of either Miami or OSU. Worse comes to worse it wouldn’t shock me for that to be an option.
“If I detected too much uncertainty in the school’s responses, that would trouble me.”
Given that these particular cuts were only just announced, I think that might be a little harsh at this early stage. Unless the college had been anticipating these cuts well in advance, they may only just now be beginning to think about how they are going to implement them and assessing what the impacts might ultimately be. There may be a general strategy that the admissions people leading the info sessions will have been briefed on, but it is unlikely that they will know nitty gritty details.
Of course, for programs that are being eliminated, they can simply say that they are not accepting new students into those programs anymore…
Wright State graduated 140 nurses at the bachelor’s level recently.
Majors with few graduates that may be more in danger include various foreign languages / literature majors, statistics, philosophy, religious studies, physics, anthropology, economics, urban studies, art history, and music.
My wife taught upper level nursing classes for a year and drove the bus for site visits. They would go visit specialized medical centers that were not part of the regular visits at the hospitals near the university: pediatric burn units, heart-lung centers, psych wards, dementia care. If I had to guess they will cut the bus trips.
Re Post 14 - I wouldn’t necessarily expect an admissions officer to know all the answers, but I would expect admissions to anticipate such questions and to know exactly whom to direct people to if they need more detailed information about cuts. Somebody should have a pretty good handle on what is expected to be cut, if not on Monday when OP visits, then at least within a month or so and should actively follow up with OP. Even if fiscal watch was just announced publicly, the school had to have some inkling this was coming (they get put on fiscal watch when certain numbers reach a certain low point for two consecutive years). If they haven’t anticipated this situation and started to plan for it, that would worry me too.
They overspent wildly for several years - and, wouldn’t you know, those administrators are now gone, and everyone else has to deal with it. They are not on fiscal watch yet, but they are being open about probably not getting a good enough score next round to stay out of it.
They’ve announced broad cuts, including some staff but no faculty. I’ve not seen details, but since the board met and went through the budget hearing someone knows something about details. They are doing away with some stuff that honestly I don’t care about, like Parents Weekend, but eliminating some languages. So … I will try to find out some details.
I just got a phone call confirming the nursing visit and tour on Monday, so they are really good at keeping in touch. When I arranged all this I felt like I got personal attention and they went out of their way to work with my schedule, which made me feel good. So I’m hoping they will have some information.
It depends. My son’s college is ranked as very fiscally irresponsible, but they have a huge endowment and by the time he leaves, they won’t have run out of money.
And my experience with a state college has been that our salaries are frozen for years at a time for state budget reasons, then they go back and pay us back pay. Right now, they have a hiring freeze because we just started a new contract.
If it is a state school, and it did fold, the chance of moving to another state college in the same state should be excellent IMHO.
Good luck, it shouldn’t have to be something for you guys to worry about!