This Week In College Viability (TWICV)

Robert Heil, CEO of Financial Aid Services, joins me to talk about removing friction from the financial aid process, the importance of comparing good and bad 4-year graduation rates, and finding ways to make colleges more accountable for graduating their students. Robert also talks about the challenges of college leaders in this day and age.  It's worth a listen.

This week we dissect and analyze: Trite strategic plans Cash-Strapped Colleges Are Selling Their Prized Art and Mansions Adding sports teams is a leading indicator of colleges in financial trouble The macro enrollment tumble v. the micro impact. Middle class students are now a marketing target To understand the future of higher education, look to the past of healthcare To purchase a version of the...

With consolidations in many forms moving through colleges, Dr. Laura De Veau speaks from experience. She addresses these quesstions in this special edition of 'This Week in College Viability'. I reached out to Laura when I saw her post on Vanderbilt University announcing a new presence in Manhattan.  (After we recorded the podcast on October 25, 2024, Vandy announced a move to Florida as well.)  S...

Headlines for the October 21, 2024 podcast More on cutbacks and layoffs Where are the Whit Students? College For All is Bad for Boys Columbia College (IL) takes big 2024 enrollment hit. New Mexico State University wants to create $137 M endowment for women's sports. Takeaways from this podcast episode. Corrections in data are crucial for credibility. Gender disparities in college admissions are wi...

I want to start off this week’s podcast with a personal observation.   I watched some 40- 50,000 people run in the Chicago Marathon yesterday.  It was a spectacle of humanity to see so many people invest so much into a challenging endeavor like running 26.2 miles Watching some 50,000 people pass you in a matter of about 90 minutes,  is a lot of humankind.   As I was watching those tens of thousand...

This week’s top news and commentary: + Yet another college sees football as enrollment salvation + Standard and Poors: College competition and operational pain are the ‘new normal,’   + You Can Now Get Admitted to Hundreds of Colleges Without Even Applying +  You get what you pay for.   Free community college in Massachusetts expected to draw 45,000 students within a year + Those stories and more...

Headlines this week: +Elizabethtown College: Fun place or not? +Bradley University enrollment dips below 5,000 for first time in over 30 years +High Schools are closing too.  What will be the impact on colleges?  Yet another college resets tuition with the age-od tag:  “Our College has been a secret too well kept for too long,” + California campuses brace for ‘severe consequences’ as budget gap lo...

This week's podcast focuses on desperation heaves and mea culpas'. I ask why can't college presidents be like college athletic coaches? For the first time ever, I announce that a college is not 'consideration worthy'. Those stories and much more in the September 23, 2024 'This Week in College Viability' podcast. LInks to College Viability Products : Products: 2024 Private College Viability App for...

Welcome to the Sep 16 TWICV podcast. It is still summer in St. Louis. High 80’s most of this week.  With any luck, the St. Louis Cardinals will be put out of their playoff hope misery shortly.   And colleges continue to announce positive enrollment stories.  ‘New enrollment record’, ‘Biggest class ever’ are just some of the typical headlines. That’s fine.  Colleges can spin the vague enrollment me...

If I created titles for these podcasts, this one would be:  Benefits of Hindsight in Closing a College . Dr. David Evans was the president of Vermont Southern College in 2019.  His college was on the leading edge of a demise that has since impacted dozens more private colleges.    Closure. In this special podcast, we discuss: The accreditor's role in the closure A 5-year historical perspective on...

TWICV for September 9, 2024 We have all survived our first full weekend of college and professional football, so let’s get to the headlines for this episode:   + Cutbacks and layoffs:  Delta State  + Rider University cuts student newspaper +  Talladega College not shutting down,  They have a 4-step plan +  Drake U has an interesting spin on 2 highly-qualified WS rankings.  You have to hear this. +...

Is it fair to critique the financial health and viability of colleges? I am a sports enthusiast.  I rarely care who wins; but I enjoy watching the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat as we used to hear on The Wide World of Sports. Recently, I noticed local and national sport writers and talking heads break down many games to a play by play level.  Of course, their analysis is mostly subjecti...

Here are the questions Ben Unglesbee addressed during our podcast interview. With all of the research and report you do, what is your sense of the stability of private colleges for this academic year? Let's talk about the FAFSA Debacle.  What is the latest you are hearing?  Do you have any best-case and worst-case scenarios for this Fall? You did a lot of reporting on University of the Arts.  Talk...

This week's podcast starts with a WWII sampling bias story that strongly relates to college enrollment.  My thanks to Jon Boeckenstedt for making the connection. + Alverno College received and HLS financial probation letter and nobody knows it. + Wisconsin week:  UW Regents close college and lay off 32 tenured professors + Spinning Fall enrollment +   Mark La Branche  IHE Survivability Is Not Sust...

If you think colleges are having troubles, here in St. Louis we can’t even get the city kids to school.  The great St. Louis bus catastrophe kicks off today.  My friend, Blythe Bernhard at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has done Pulitzer-worthy investigative stories on the colossal failure that is SLPS leadership.  It’s not the kids, not the families, not the employees – it’s the school board and its...

Get the College Viability Student & Family updates here . College classes are beginning to bring students to campus for the Fall 2024 term.  While the FAFSA Debacle is still out there, I am sensing some last-minute scrambling by both students and colleges to get the FAFSA app submitted and processed. I am going to stick with my forecast of 2-3 colleges closings per week starting later this Fal...

St. Ambrose University President Amy Novak and Mount Mercy University President Todd Olson join me to discuss the strategic combination of their two organizations.  Summary Dr. Amy Novak, president of St. Ambrose University, and Dr. Todd Olson, president of Mount Mercy University, discuss their strategic combination and the future of Iowa private colleges. They emphasize the need for innovation an...

The end of July and early August produced a really slow news week in higher education.  My google alerts on many higher education topics produced more alumni obituaries than anything else. But then Forbes released their 2024 Financial Grades for Private Colleges over the weekend.  I will go into great detail about the article and its meaning for HE. Get the College Viability Student & Family u...

Here are the questions from my interview with Rebeka Mazzone, Founder and CEO of FutureEDFinance . Tell us briefly about Futuredfinance. Talk about finance as a lagging indicator of a college's financial health. I spend a lot of time at institutions that have tried to solve this (operating deficit) problem with quick fixes. They tried short-term bumps in their spending rates, a one-time sale of pr...

The end of July is upon us.  The Olympics are all over the TV and news.  I understand there is a presidential election in about 100 days.  I just saw 5 Bucks and 3 does wandering through my typical American suburb street. And none of this changes that fact that higher education in general and smaller, private colleges in particular, are headed toward the consequences of a diminishing demand and th...

Here are the lead news and commentary stories for July 22, 2024 Get the College Viability Student & Family updates here . Layoffs, cutbacks, closures & FAFSA check ins .  Folks it is going to be 10-11% decrease in enrollment.  Not everywhere, but it will be in colleges that cant’ afford to lose anything like that number of students. + HLGU (MO) has a dizzy spinning story that I will dissec...

It was last Monday that Northwestern College (IL) (NOT University)announced its closure.  They announced it on Monday.  They had turned out the lights the previous Saturday.  So, let’s start this hot summer week in anticipation of the next college that will wreak havoc on its students, faculty, and community with another short-notice closure.   This week’s higher education news and commentary incl...

This special podcast episode of 'This Week in College Viability' continues our focus on the financial health of colleges. My guest is Jeff Spear, CEO of CFO Colleague. Here are two of the many strong observations from Jeff. 1.  "Too many colleges are like a speeding minivan with no driver, heading for a cliff, while the occupants argue over what DVD to watch.  Indeed, there are many who don’t have...

My special guest in this podcast episode is Raphael Courtland.  Mr. Courtland has a long history in finance and in higher education. We discuss: Large-scale mergers and consolidation in higher education The role that debt is playing in the financial health of many colleges Whether there is anything financially-challenged colleges can do to recover. What role 'feeding a student's ego' has in higher...

As the competition in 2024 Paris Olympics draw near, we are sadly seeing competition for the shortest notice of a college closure. More shortly.   +  How To Throw Away A Million Dollars + Applications are not enrollments. MSN gets lazy. + Don’t mess with The College Fix.  MIT plus 1200  + Hampshire thinks a morsel of good news is a feast. + A faculty story:  bugs, birds, and bats, oh my. + Another...