Showing posts with label St. Catharine College. Show all posts
Showing posts with label St. Catharine College. Show all posts

Monday, May 8, 2017

A Holy Cross Vice President writes confidential email hinting that the college may close and mistakenly sends it to the entire student body: Oops!

Kelly Jordan, Vice President for Student Affairs at Holy Cross College in Indiana, sent a confidential email to a boarding school administrator last April, hinting that Holy Cross may soon be closing. Kelly told his correspondent that he might "spend the better part of the coming school year closing down the college."

Unfortunately for Vice President Jordan--and for Holy Cross, for that matter--Jordan's email was mistakenly sent out to the entire student body. Oops! The South Bend Tribune, a local newspaper, picked up the story; and now the whole world knows that the future of Holy Cross is in doubt.

Father David Tyson, interim president of Holy Cross, sent out the usual damage-control email message, assuring students that "I look forward to classes beginning in August and working with the faculty and students to create a bright future for the college that fully reflects the Holy Cross mission."

Note that Father Tyson did not contradict VP Jordan's message that Holy Cross might soon be shutting down.

Holy Cross is clearly in trouble. Its former president stepped down earlier this spring along with three of its five vice presidents. The college is quite small--only about 500 students; and the future of many small liberal arts colleges is uncertain.  Less than a year ago, two small Catholic colleges announced they were closing: St. Catharine College in Kentucky and St. Joseph's College in Indiana.

Most small liberal arts colleges depend heavily on tuition revenue, and a lot of them are having trouble attracting students. The National Association for College Admission Counseling recently published a list of colleges that still have room for incoming freshmen or transfer students in their fall 2017 classes. As of early this month, there were more than 500 colleges and universities on that list.  A majority of those schools were private liberal arts colleges with less than 5,000 students.  Seventy-seven of those schools had 1,000 students or less.

A lot of small liberal arts colleges are fighting to survive; and many will fail over the next two or three years. Holy Cross's recent embarrassment raises questions about how college administrators should deal with their own institutions' struggles.

Obviously, small-college administrators should do everything they can to attract new students and revenues. But there comes a time when college leaders need to ask themselves if they have a moral obligation to shut down rather than attract more new students into an institution that is on the road to closure.

If so, when should students and staff be told? I can't answer that question, but for Holy Cross the question is moot thanks to the fact that a confidential email message went public.


Photo credit: South Bend Tribune


References


College Openings Update: Options for Qualified Students. National Association for College Admission Counseling (n.d.).


Margaret Fosmoe. Holy Cross VP paints bleak future for college in emails mistakenly sent to students.  South Bend Tribune, May 6, 2017.

Scott Jaschik.  College Will Suspend Operations. Inside Higher ED, February 7, 2017.

Scott Jaschik. 350 Colleges Still Have Room for New Undergrads. Inside Higher ED, May 4, 2017.

Emily Tate. College VP Sends Email on Possible Closure. Inside Higher Ed, May 8, 2017.


Friday, March 10, 2017

763 colleges and schools closed last year, and most of their former students have student loan debt

As reported by Bloomberg, 763 colleges and schools closed last year--the highest number since 2012, when more than 900 schools were closed. In fact, since 1984, more than 13,000 post-secondary schools have shut down,  including more than 300 foreign schools. And all these institutions--including the foreign institutions--were beneficiaries of the federal student aid program at the time of their demise, which mean they got Pell grant funds and federal student-loan money while they were operating.

However, a close look at the Department of Education's closed schools list, however, reveals that the numbers are not as alarming as they might first appear. First of all, most of these schools were small propriety trade schools, barber schools, schools of cosmetology, etc, which had relatively small numbers of students.  For example, Ruth's Beauty College and the Hollywood Script Writing Institute are on that list, along with Paul's Academy of Cosmetology.

Moreover, many schools on the list were simply branches of institutions that are still thriving. University of Oklahoma, for example, closed a campus at Kunsan Army Base and another one at Rhein Air Base. In fact, mainline universities all over the United States have been shutting down unprofitable satellite campuses, and these closings have swelled the list of total closures.

Nevertheless, sprinkled among the beauty schools, barber colleges, and satellite campuses on the closed school list, are a significant number of free-standing colleges that have shut their doors.  A few recent examples have made the national news: St. Catharine College in Kentucky, Dowling College in New York, St. Joseph's College in Indiana, Virginia Intermont College, and Virginia's Sweet Briar College (which later reopened).

And more are sure to follow. Moody's Investors Service predicted in 2015 that the number of annual college closures would triple in the years to come to about 15, and this estimate is probably too low. In my view, no college with an enrollment of  less than 1000 students can survive long; and there are a lot of schools in that category.

Here are some things to think about as the closure rate for postsecondary institutions accelerates:

I. Expedited loan forgiveness for former students of for-profit colleges

 First, all these schools--all 13,000 of them--participated in the federal student loan program, and a great many of them left their former students in the lurch. ITT Tech and Corinthian Colleges alone had a total of half a million former students, and both institutions are in bankruptcy.

The Department of Education needs to develop an expedited loan forgiveness process for student-loan debtors who attended closed schools--particularly the for-profit schools that close at the rate of several hundred a year. In fact, all students who to took out loans to attend a closed for-profit college should have their loans automatically forgiven--no questions asked.

II. A central records repository to maintain student transcripts of closed colleges

Second, a central records repository needs to be established to maintain the transcripts of students who attended these closed institutions. This should be a federal responsibility since many of these schools were created primarily to capture federal student aid money.

III.Shutting down the for-profit sector and foreign participation in the federal student loan program

Finally, we've simply got to shut down the for-profit college sector, and we've got to quit subsidizing foreign colleges that are receiving federal student aid funds.  Let's face it: a great many of the defunct for-profit schools  were created for the primary purpose of feasting from the federal larder of easy student-loan money.

Do we need postsecondary training in the trades? Yes, we do, but that mission should be assigned to public community colleges and not to flaky outfits like Bubba's Welding Academy.


References

Another Small Private Closes Its Doors. Inside Higher Ed, June 1, 2016.

Paul Fain. The Department and St. Catharine.  Inside Higher Ed, June 2, 2016.

Lyndsey Layton. Virginia Tech pays fine for failure to warn campus during 2007 massacre. Washington Post, April 16, 2014.

Rick Seltzer. Closing out a college. Insider Higher Education, January 5, 2017.

Kate Smith. Here's What Happens to Endowments When Colleges Close. Bloomberg.com, March 6, 2017.

Susan Svrluga. Alumnae vowed to save Sweet Briar from closing last year. And they did. Washington Post, March 3, 2016.

Kellie Woodhouse. Closures to Triple. Inside Higher Education, September 28, 2015. 

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

St. Catharine College of Kentucky is in receivership: More small colleges will close as federal oversight squeezes small liberal arts colleges out of business

Last month, St. Catharine College closed its doors for the final time. More than 100 faculty members and staff were laid off, and a federal court placed the college in receivership, which means a court-appointed overseer will manage the institution's assets on behalf of creditors.

St. Catharine's leaders blamed its closure on the U.S. Department of Education. DOE put the college on its "Heightened Cash Scrutiny" list, subjecting it to more onerous regulation of its federal financial aid money.  College administrators said DOE's move was unjust and forced the college to close.

St. Catharine is one of 517 colleges and universities on DOE's latest "Heightened Cash Scrutiny" list, which includes proprietary schools, a few public universities,  about 40 foreign institutions, and quite a few small liberal arts colleges like St. Catharine.  Not all these schools will  close in coming years, but some of them will.

For example, Shimer College is on the list; Shimer only has about 100 undergraduates. How long do you think Shimer will last? Pine Manor College, a small school in Brookline, Massachusetts, is also on the list. Pine Manor had about 500 students in the fall of 2015; and the total cost of attendance (tuition, room and board, etc.) is $43,000. How healthy do you think Pine Manor is?

Small liberal arts colleges all over the United States will be closing at an accelerating rate in the coming years.  The cost of attendance is simply too high at these little schools. Of course, most small private colleges are now discounting their tuition rates for entering freshmen--on average, first-year students are only paying about 50 percent of the sticker price.  But slashing tuition fees has not lured enough customers for many small colleges to keep their enrollments up.

I don't know enough about St. Catharine's situation to determine whether DOE treated the college unfairly. DOE may have had good reasons for putting St. Catharine on its "Heightened Cash Scrutiny" list. But it is fair to say that DOE's intensive meddling in college affairs has increased administrative costs for American colleges and universities.  Small institutions--colleges with less than a thousand students--simply can't afford the mounting costs of complying with federal mandates.

For a major public university, new  DOE mandates are manageable.  The University of Texas, for example, can hire additional administrators to comply with federal regulations; and it has a battalion of lawyers who can draft updated university policies to comply with new federal regulations that are spewed out of Washington.

But the little colleges simply can't afford the cost of complying with ever more intrusive federal regulations--FERPA, the Clery Act, Title IX, Section 504, etc.  And one by one, small liberal arts colleges will begin closing.

I foresee the day when American higher education will consist of three sectors: 1) secular public institutions, for-profit colleges, and elite private colleges and universities that have large endowments. Small liberal arts colleges, once a respected and important segment of American higher education, will soon be a thing of the past.

St. Cathrine Chapel.jpg
St. Catharine College is in receivership



References

Paul Fain. St. Catharine College Placed in Receivership. Inside Higher Ed, July 28, 2016. Accessible at https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2016/07/28/former-st-catharine-college-placed-receivership

Rick Howlett. St. Catharine College Closes Its Doors For the Final Time. WFPL, August 1, 2016. Accessible at http://wfpl.org/st-catharine-college-shutters-doors/

Kelly Woodhouse. (2015, November 25). Discount Much? Inside Higher Ed. Accessible at: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/11/25/what-it-might-mean-when-colleges-discount-rate-tops-60-percent?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=389f6fe14e-DNU20151125&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-389f6fe14e-198565653




Monday, July 25, 2016

The Department of Education has 517 colleges on its"Heightened Cash Monitoring" list due to perceived risks to students and taxpayers: Is your college on the list?

The Department of Education recently released its updated list of colleges that are targeted for "heightened cash monitoring" due DOE concerns about risks these colleges pose to students or taxpayers.  The latest list names 517 colleges, slightly down from the 528 colleges that were on the list in March of 2015. Colleges on the list get more intense federal oversight than other schools.

How does a college get on this list? There are a variety of reasons, including accrediting problems, audit concerns and "financial responsibility," an umbrella term DOE uses to  cover a range of financial issues.

Not surprisingly, a majority of the colleges on the list are proprietary schools, including such esteemed institutions as Toni & Guy Hairdressing Academy and Educators of Beauty College of Cosmetology. But there were 81 public institutions on the "heightened cash monitoring" list, including regional colleges like University of North Alabama and Southwest Minnesota State University.

And DOE flagged no fewer than 40 foreign institutions for heightened cash monitoring, including Hebrew University in Jerusalem, London International Film School, and Pentecostal Theological Seminary in London.  A couple of Polish medical schools also made the list: Medical University of Gdansk and the Medical University of Silesia.

Quite a few nonprofit liberal arts colleges are on DOE's heightened cash monitoring list, including several schools with religious affiliations. It is difficult to tell how many private colleges have religious ties because a college's name may not give it away. Kuyper College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for example, describes itself as a "minister focused Christian leadership college," but you have to go to the college's web site to find that out.

In fact, of the 32 colleges listed on the first page of DOE's print out of schools under heightened cash monitoring, 13 had some sort of religious tie or heritage, including Kentucky Wesleyan College, St. Catharine College, Eastern Nazarene College, and MacMurray College in Illinois, which was founded, according to its web site, by "devout and erudite Methodist clergymen."

Of course not all 517 colleges marked for enhanced cash monitoring will close. Most of the regional state universities on the list will probably muddle along indefinitely, propped up by state revenues.

But I think a lot of the schools on DOE's list will close. St. Catharine College is in receivership right now.

And what is the future of Shimer College in Chicago, which was recently ranked as one of the worst colleges in America and has only about 100 undergraduates? Shimer was founded in 1853 as Mount Carroll Seminary. Over time, the school evolved to become what it is today, a college that exists on two floors of a rented building and has no clubs or student societies. In 2012 it was ranked the second smallest college in America, after Alaska Bible College.

Of course, Shimer has its defenders and probably has many sterling qualities. Nevertheless, how long do you think Shimer College will last?

DOE's most recent list of colleges under "heightened cash scrutiny" should prompt us to ask several questions:

1) First, why is the federal government lending money for Americans to attend foreign colleges, including a couple of dozen foreign medical schools and several theological institutions? After all, our own country has more than 5,000 postsecondary institutions that participate in the federal student aid program, Does the government really need to finance foreign study?

2) A lot of for-profit schools are going to close in coming years.  Millions of students who attended these institutions received substandard educational experiences that did not lead to well-paying jobs.What should our government do to provide relief to the millions of people who took out loans to enroll in dodgy for-profit schools?

3) Hundreds of small liberal arts colleges are under financial stress, as evidenced by DOE's most recent "heightened cash scrutiny" list and by the escalating closure rate among these institutions. In terms of our nation's overall educational health, should we be concerned about the declining number of private liberal arts colleges, many of which are religiously affiliated?

One thing is certain. Hundreds of American postsecondary institutions, from Toni and Guy's Hairdressing Academy to Harvard, depend heavily on federal student aid money; and a great many colleges could not survive a week without regular infusions of federal funds. This has enabled colleges to hike their tuition rates and increase their annual budgets.

But the party is coming to an end. People have figured out that postsecondary education costs too much--whether it is obtained at a bottom-tier for-profit institution or an elite private liberal arts college. To fix this mess, we must do two things: We must drive down the cost of going to college, and we must provide bankruptcy relief for the millions of worthy souls who took out student loans in good faith and got very little to show for it.



Frances Wood Shimer, Courtesy of Shimer College Wiki
Francis Wood Shimer,: founder of Shimer College


References

Scott Jaschik. Slight Drop in Colleges in Heightened Cash Monitoring. Inside Higher Education, July 25, 2016. Accessible at https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2016/07/25/slight-drop-colleges-heightened-cash-monitoring?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=8991789a59-DNU20160725&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-8991789a59-198564813

Ben Miller. America's Worst Colleges. Washington Monthly, September/October 2014. Accessible at http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septoct-2014/americas-worst-colleges/

Jon Ronson. Shimer College; the worst school in America? The Guardian, December 6, 2014. Accessible at https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/dec/06/shimer-college-illinois-worst-school-america

Michael Stratford, Education Department will release list of colleges found to be risking for students, taxpayers. Inside Higher Education, March 30, 2015. Accessible at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/03/30/education-department-will-release-list-colleges-found-be-risky-students-taxpayers

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Small colleges and for-profits are closing at an accelerating rate: Do Not Resuscitate

Resuscitate: to bring (someone who is unconscious, not breathing, or close to death) back to a conscious or active state again.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary 

Two sectors of the higher education are under extreme stress: for-profit institutions and small liberal arts colleges. In both sectors, schools are closing or downsizing at an accelerating rate.

In the last two weeks alone, Dowling College and St. Catharine College announced they are closing. Grace University, an interdenominational school in Nebraska, is raising tuition and cutting salaries to deal with financial problems; and for-profit Brown Mackie College announced that it is closing 22 of its 26 campuses over the next few years and will not accept any new students.

These failing colleges and universities are the educational equivalent of terminally ill patients. They see death approaching, but they deal with their mortality in different ways. Some failing colleges shut down in an orderly fashion and make arrangements for their current students to complete their programs at other institutions. Others refuse to accept the inevitable and search desperately for a survival strategy.

For example, Sweet Briar College in Virginia announced it was closing more than a year ago, but new leadership and some moneyed alumni rushed in to keep it open. But this year, Sweet Briar only enrolled 24 freshmen.

Likewise, although Dowling College announced its closure, it is now trying to partner with Global University Systems, "an educational investment firm" that has multiple partnerships with universities in England, Canada and the U.S. Personally, I can't see how this new relationship will have any bearing on Dowling's future.

In my view, all these faltering for-profits and struggling private colleges should close their doors with dignity once they have explored all reasonable strategies for remaining viable  Most of them are on life support--existing from month to month on infusions of student-loan money. It is irresponsible for failing institutions to continue recruiting students when trustees and administrators know these students will be going into debt to obtain an education from a college that will be closing in the very near future.

References

Candice Ferette and John Hildebrtand. Dowling, still officially open, can award degrees over summer. Newsday, June 14, 2016. Accessible at http://www.newsday.com/long-island/education/dowling-still-officially-open-can-award-degrees-over-summer-1.11916403

Emily Nohr. Grace University will raise tuition, cut baseball and softball, reduce salaries to cope with financial problems. Omaha World-Herald, June 14, 2016.  Accessble at http://www.omaha.com/news/education/grace-university-will-raise-tuition-cut-baseball-and-softball-reduce/article_499c0d2c-325d-11e6-84e8-17b1280538f5.html

Ashley A. Smith. Decreases in enrollment lead to Brown Mackie closing. Inside Higher Ed, June 15, 2016.  Accessible at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/06/15/decreases-enrollment-lead-brown-mackie-closing

Another Small Private Closes Its DoorsInside Higher Ed, June 1, 2016. Accesible at https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2016/06/01/another-small-private-closes-its-doors-dowling-college?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=a0fafeb056-DNU20160601&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-a0fafeb056-198564813

Paul Fain. The Department and St. Catharine.  Inside Higher Ed, June 2, 2016. Accessible at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/06/02/small-private-college-closes-blames-education-department-sanction?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=3d1c6eed79-DNU20160602&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-3d1c6eed79-198565653

Rick Seltzer. Sweet Briar falls short of initial enrollment target, but leaders remain optimistic. Inside Higher Ed. May 5, 2016. Accessible at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/05/05/sweet-briar-falls-short-initial-enrollment-target-leaders-remain-optimistic

Kellie Woodhouse. Closures to TripleInside Higher Education, September 28, 2015. Accessile at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/28/moodys-predicts-college-closures-triple-2017

Lee Gardner. Where Does the Regional State University Go From Here? Partners 4 Affordable Excellence. May 22, 2016http://partners4edu.org/regional-state-university-go/