My alma mater, Ithaca College precisely fell prey to the fallacy of, "more expensive means more prestige".
Not only is this patently false, the administration has discovered ,thanks to the pandemic, that people are re-evaluating the cost of a college degree. The truth is, outside of ivy league schools and brand name tech schools (mit, Caltech, etc) your alumni network means jack diddly for finding a job for the majority of graduating students.
I told alumni reps repeatedly back in the 2010s that high tuition prices and student loans levels will directly impact student giving. They didn't listen to me guess what? The giving rate for the college has gradually collapsed YoY and they supposedly have no idea why.
Couple that with having a huge operational deficit, they made the wildly unpopular move of cancelling degree programs and merging departments together which further impacts alumni giving.
The combination is a death spiral because reduced alumni giving means less scholarships which makes the sting of a high tuition hurt even more.
Meanwhile, the administration which is notoriously overpaid compared to other private school salaries, $250-350k year salary for a private school in BFE New York, looks askew with underpaid faculty when their roles get cut and they kept their big salaries.
The truth is, the college is massively overpriced compared to the amenities it provides. Dorms are old and the food is a level above prison tier. Combined tuition room and board tops $100k and you'd be a fool to ask yourself, "what am I getting for this right now" because again the dubiousness of finding a job after college means you better provide value for your money.
And the final blow to this is the fact that birth rates are collapsing so the total addressable market for higher education shrinks every year.
Higher education needs to have a come to Jesus moment like academic publishers have and realize that their market is shrinking. Either figure out how to become more affordable or spiral the drain. Big schools need not worry. Small overpriced private liberal arts colleges? Watch out.
Even non profits need to think like cit throat businesses.
> Not only is this patently false, the administration has discovered ,thanks to the pandemic, that people are re-evaluating the cost of a college degree.
Ithaca college has an endowment of $350 million, is heavily subsidized by the government, and the "everyone should go to college" lunacy they push in public schools will pay dividends for decades to come.
I don't think they're hurting, or that they will notice that a few people are "re-evaluating".
> The truth is, the college is massively overpriced compared to the amenities it provides. Dorms are old and the food is a level above prison tier.
Standard operating procedure is therefor to spend a few hundred million through financing to upgrade the dorms to resort spas, turn the cafeteria into some mall-style food court with prices double what they are 3 miles down the road at the identical restaurant name, and raise tuition to cover all these additional costs.
> Either figure out how to become more affordable or spiral the drain.
That spiral can last decades, until a date far past the retirement of anyone currently in charge.
It always starts small until it isn't. The cultural shift is happening and since I don't see interest rates dropping that affects affordability for everyone from students to colleges.
And with interest rates as high as they are, financing isn't as easy an option anymore to do that type of turn over. Touching the endowment isn't an option either since that signals to big name donors the college isn't healthy.
> The truth is, outside of ivy league schools and brand name tech schools (mit, Caltech, etc) your alumni network means jack diddly for finding a job for the majority of graduating students.
This does not align with my experiences, at all. I went to a private school in LA, and almost everyone I know from there got internships and first jobs in one of two ways: They casually mentioned to their professor that they were looking for a job, and the professor made a few calls, or they met a fellow student who's parents were hiring. And it makes quite a bit of sense: if you're trying to hire somebody, most of the time you're not looking for the best candidate, you're trying to weed out the bad candidates. If a professor you have some trust in suggests that this student would make a good intern, they probably will, and you can avoid all the hassle of trying to weed through the masses of applicants.
Not only is this patently false, the administration has discovered ,thanks to the pandemic, that people are re-evaluating the cost of a college degree. The truth is, outside of ivy league schools and brand name tech schools (mit, Caltech, etc) your alumni network means jack diddly for finding a job for the majority of graduating students.
I told alumni reps repeatedly back in the 2010s that high tuition prices and student loans levels will directly impact student giving. They didn't listen to me guess what? The giving rate for the college has gradually collapsed YoY and they supposedly have no idea why.
Couple that with having a huge operational deficit, they made the wildly unpopular move of cancelling degree programs and merging departments together which further impacts alumni giving.
The combination is a death spiral because reduced alumni giving means less scholarships which makes the sting of a high tuition hurt even more.
Meanwhile, the administration which is notoriously overpaid compared to other private school salaries, $250-350k year salary for a private school in BFE New York, looks askew with underpaid faculty when their roles get cut and they kept their big salaries.
The truth is, the college is massively overpriced compared to the amenities it provides. Dorms are old and the food is a level above prison tier. Combined tuition room and board tops $100k and you'd be a fool to ask yourself, "what am I getting for this right now" because again the dubiousness of finding a job after college means you better provide value for your money.
And the final blow to this is the fact that birth rates are collapsing so the total addressable market for higher education shrinks every year.
Higher education needs to have a come to Jesus moment like academic publishers have and realize that their market is shrinking. Either figure out how to become more affordable or spiral the drain. Big schools need not worry. Small overpriced private liberal arts colleges? Watch out.
Even non profits need to think like cit throat businesses.