[akiddoc]

Stanford's always been looking for ways to expand the undergraduate population, but physical limitations of dorm space, etc. always got in the way.  I wonder if Stanford will consider boosting enrollment now while exploring near-term construction options while students are away...

Also there was a study sometime ago looking at the cost increases of higher ed over recent years.  It seems that there have been more and more program/mid-tier administrators added to higher ed payrolls, many with substantial salaries.  If you're looking for fat to trim, you might start there.

Stanford recently gave up on expanding the undergraduate class sizes. Palo Alto and Santa Clara County made it impossible to get through the environmental impact hurdles.

[akiddoc]

Stanford's always been looking for ways to expand the undergraduate population, but physical limitations of dorm space, etc. always got in the way.  I wonder if Stanford will consider boosting enrollment now while exploring near-term construction options while students are away...

Also there was a study sometime ago looking at the cost increases of higher ed over recent years.  It seems that there have been more and more program/mid-tier administrators added to higher ed payrolls, many with substantial salaries.  If you're looking for fat to trim, you might start there.

Stanford recently gave up on expanding the undergraduate class sizes. Palo Alto and Santa Clara County made it impossible to get through the environmental impact hurdles.

[Genuine Realist]

Stanford's always been looking for ways to expand the undergraduate population, but physical limitations of dorm space, etc. always got in the way.  I wonder if Stanford will consider boosting enrollment now while exploring near-term construction options while students are away...

Also there was a study sometime ago looking at the cost increases of higher ed over recent years.  It seems that there have been more and more program/mid-tier administrators added to higher ed payrolls, many with substantial salaries.  If you're looking for fat to trim, you might start there.

Stanford recently gave up on expanding the undergraduate class sizes. Palo Alto and Santa Clara County made it impossible to get through the environmental impact hurdles.

Until very recently, simply by the built-in constraints of education, an elite university could only offer access to its educational programs to a limited number of persons. It was a question of dormitory space, and even classroom space. So you have an admissions process that becomes more and more selective, and is inevitably arbitrary. All this leads inevitably to credentialism. The best thing about it is that nobody likes it, not even people with credentials.

It has been thus since the first academies, maybe going back to Socrates. There's only so many people that can walk around a peripatetic philosopher. Television altered that only slightly because it isn't interactive. But the Internet changes everything.

Stanford. MIT, Harvard, Pomona (yeah - I had to sneak that in) - can offer their full curriculum to the entire world. You think you have to have a community of eager minds to make the learning experience work? That can be done online, too. That is in fact EXACTLY what is happening on this very Board, albeit not on a dedicated class. You can make the Stanford educational experience available to anyone able to cope with it. Since the audience is so much larger, the tuition per unit has to come down - particularly since Harvard, MIT, and Pomona (I never give up) are competing for the same dollar. 

Classes that require term papers you can manage with readers or TA's, maybe full time employees, but far less expensive than maintaining an educational plant. Lab classes, too, with local labs on contract.

How this affects higher education in general is impossible fully to visualize. Maybe some Darwinian principle puts all but the most prestigious schools out of business. But there is some upper limit on Stanford, based on the employee base it wants to maintain. The limits are just much larger. So you do have other schools besides the majors.

Or maybe not. Maybe Amazon puts everyone out of business, hiring the creme de la creme of profs from Stanford, MIT, etc., hiring superb TA's and docents, and offering an education on a massive scale of a quality that non one has ever seen before. Maybe the Amazon U grads blow everyone out of the water on the GRE's, LSATS, and MCAT's when push comes to shove, and prepared so inexpensively due to economies of scale, that everyone wonders why in the world anyone pays Stanford tuition. Both exciting and scary.

Of course, not everyone wants to compete at that level. Also, some bright kids are not well enough prepared for intense high level courses. There remains a need for higher education not quite as challenging. So maybe quality schools not quite as rigorous as ultra elite remain. Of course, Amazon U might fill that niche, too, offering degrees with varying indications of achievement, something like the Oxford First.

In some ways, the system would throw back to the Oxford or Heidelberg of a century ago, in which you enrolled and were on your own until exam time, just so you were prepared for exams.

One rather odd thing is that Demo  promise of college for all is a lot more practical than some of the other ones.

None of this thinking originates with Covid-19. But the closing of the campuses, while the classes go on, brings it into high relief.

[Genuine Realist]

Stanford's always been looking for ways to expand the undergraduate population, but physical limitations of dorm space, etc. always got in the way.  I wonder if Stanford will consider boosting enrollment now while exploring near-term construction options while students are away...

Also there was a study sometime ago looking at the cost increases of higher ed over recent years.  It seems that there have been more and more program/mid-tier administrators added to higher ed payrolls, many with substantial salaries.  If you're looking for fat to trim, you might start there.

Stanford recently gave up on expanding the undergraduate class sizes. Palo Alto and Santa Clara County made it impossible to get through the environmental impact hurdles.

Until very recently, simply by the built-in constraints of education, an elite university could only offer access to its educational programs to a limited number of persons. It was a question of dormitory space, and even classroom space. So you have an admissions process that becomes more and more selective, and is inevitably arbitrary. All this leads inevitably to credentialism. The best thing about it is that nobody likes it, not even people with credentials.

It has been thus since the first academies, maybe going back to Socrates. There's only so many people that can walk around a peripatetic philosopher. Television altered that only slightly because it isn't interactive. But the Internet changes everything.

Stanford. MIT, Harvard, Pomona (yeah - I had to sneak that in) - can offer their full curriculum to the entire world. You think you have to have a community of eager minds to make the learning experience work? That can be done online, too. That is in fact EXACTLY what is happening on this very Board, albeit not on a dedicated class. You can make the Stanford educational experience available to anyone able to cope with it. Since the audience is so much larger, the tuition per unit has to come down - particularly since Harvard, MIT, and Pomona (I never give up) are competing for the same dollar. 

Classes that require term papers you can manage with readers or TA's, maybe full time employees, but far less expensive than maintaining an educational plant. Lab classes, too, with local labs on contract.

How this affects higher education in general is impossible fully to visualize. Maybe some Darwinian principle puts all but the most prestigious schools out of business. But there is some upper limit on Stanford, based on the employee base it wants to maintain. The limits are just much larger. So you do have other schools besides the majors.

Or maybe not. Maybe Amazon puts everyone out of business, hiring the creme de la creme of profs from Stanford, MIT, etc., hiring superb TA's and docents, and offering an education on a massive scale of a quality that non one has ever seen before. Maybe the Amazon U grads blow everyone out of the water on the GRE's, LSATS, and MCAT's when push comes to shove, and prepared so inexpensively due to economies of scale, that everyone wonders why in the world anyone pays Stanford tuition. Both exciting and scary.

Of course, not everyone wants to compete at that level. Also, some bright kids are not well enough prepared for intense high level courses. There remains a need for higher education not quite as challenging. So maybe quality schools not quite as rigorous as ultra elite remain. Of course, Amazon U might fill that niche, too, offering degrees with varying indications of achievement, something like the Oxford First.

In some ways, the system would throw back to the Oxford or Heidelberg of a century ago, in which you enrolled and were on your own until exam time, just so you were prepared for exams.

One rather odd thing is that Demo  promise of college for all is a lot more practical than some of the other ones.

None of this thinking originates with Covid-19. But the closing of the campuses, while the classes go on, brings it into high relief.

[pefloresjr]

It is an interesting question.  When I was there in the early 80's, Stanford was very much built on the concept of residence based education.  I don't think that has changed.  A professor and his/her family lived on the ground floor of my dorms all 4 years on campus and we regularly interacted with them at meals and in other casual settings.  I was also in SLE (Structured Liberal Education) freshman year where we had many of our professors living in the dorm, small groups in the lounges/professor's apartments, and our TA's also served as our writing tutors and dorm RAs.  It seemed that as much of our education, if not more, took place in the dorm rather than in the classroom.  My fiance was a student at SJSU and lived with me as well as had a meal plan in my row house senior year.  She was in the honors program at San Jose but says that it was clear that Stanford was requiring higher level work.  The most striking difference she noted was the exposure to other high-performing, intelligent students everyday in the lounge and dining hall.  She really liked getting that exposure "for free" since she wasn't officially a Stanford resident.  Those are the things that distinguish schools like Stanford from other places.  

However, GR is right in noting that some of the interaction has changed over the years and students today are much more comfortable spending a great deal of time interacting with their peers on computers and phones.  That could change the dynamic of residence based education but I do see problems with scaling that experience up to large numbers.  The high school freshman who lives in the neighboring flat told me that, even though he is used to being on-line all the time, taking all of his classes on-line is really tiring and he is spending a lot less of his social time on line right now.  God forbid, but he is actually spending more time hanging out with and interacting with his sheltered in place family.  

I'm sure that the elite institutions, like Stanford and Claremont-McKenna ;-), will resist for a long time.  I am sure there are actual experts in education on this board who have greater insights, but this is my personal experience.  

Cheers,
Pete F.

[pefloresjr]

It is an interesting question.  When I was there in the early 80's, Stanford was very much built on the concept of residence based education.  I don't think that has changed.  A professor and his/her family lived on the ground floor of my dorms all 4 years on campus and we regularly interacted with them at meals and in other casual settings.  I was also in SLE (Structured Liberal Education) freshman year where we had many of our professors living in the dorm, small groups in the lounges/professor's apartments, and our TA's also served as our writing tutors and dorm RAs.  It seemed that as much of our education, if not more, took place in the dorm rather than in the classroom.  My fiance was a student at SJSU and lived with me as well as had a meal plan in my row house senior year.  She was in the honors program at San Jose but says that it was clear that Stanford was requiring higher level work.  The most striking difference she noted was the exposure to other high-performing, intelligent students everyday in the lounge and dining hall.  She really liked getting that exposure "for free" since she wasn't officially a Stanford resident.  Those are the things that distinguish schools like Stanford from other places.  

However, GR is right in noting that some of the interaction has changed over the years and students today are much more comfortable spending a great deal of time interacting with their peers on computers and phones.  That could change the dynamic of residence based education but I do see problems with scaling that experience up to large numbers.  The high school freshman who lives in the neighboring flat told me that, even though he is used to being on-line all the time, taking all of his classes on-line is really tiring and he is spending a lot less of his social time on line right now.  God forbid, but he is actually spending more time hanging out with and interacting with his sheltered in place family.  

I'm sure that the elite institutions, like Stanford and Claremont-McKenna ;-), will resist for a long time.  I am sure there are actual experts in education on this board who have greater insights, but this is my personal experience.  

Cheers,
Pete F.

[JustAnotherFan]

A nice read is The End of College by Kevin Carey. In it he repeatedly argues that much of the problem is that we've evolved a "hybrid-university" that tries to (1) train workers [credentialing], (2) provide a broad based education [liberal arts], and (3) allow professional scholars to research and create knowledge [research]. And by doing all things at once it does none of them very well. Everyone who cares about higher education knows that that's generally true except for maybe the third priority, and that the students are not being well served by this model. 

Stepping back we know that the most important benefit to the student of going to college is certainly not 2 or 3, and in terms of 1 it is almost entirely credentialing and signaling that matters. We know that many jobs require a degree to get a foot in the door so that is what people have been going to college for. And that employers need a screen so they fall back on selective universities to start the screening process. But the actual economic value of a degree is mostly gained in the final semester of school (the difference in expected salary of a student who leaves college at the beginning of freshman year versus who leaves at the beginning of senior year is much smaller than the difference of the student who leaves senior year versus graduating). It's not about the content or even the experience of college that is valuable to students -- it is the credentialing and signaling that matters. 

Can Stanford or Harvard create a platform that would allow anyone to be able to access it in a post-pandemic world? No, not without destroying what they have. Harvard has experimented with the Extension School as a way to make access to Harvard more accessible at least to people willing to live in Boston. It may be a money maker for them but it hardly confers the benefits of Harvard on the working class. Working class (and brand chasers) who get a degree at the Extension School pay boatloads of money just to have a Harvard degree that people scoff at once they learn that it was an Extension School degree. To create an online degree that was more widely accessible Harvard would need to invest in protecting the brand of the college (and business school and law school and medical school) by distancing an online degree from their other degrees. At some point one has to ask themselves, without selective admissions that starts the screening process, why go to an online Harvard (or Stanford or MIT) when they can do so with Arizona State (or Apple or Amazon) for much cheaper?

I think the future of Higher Ed looks more like the recently departed Clay Christensen suggested ... half of the colleges and universities are going to cease to exist (his timeline for this prediction passed before he did, but it may still happen in the next five years). The colleges that remain will be supported by the state but politicians will consolidate resources toward flagship universities and begin shutting down directional colleges and community colleges to keep those universities afloat. Small liberal arts colleges that actually focused on the liberal arts (#2 goal mentioned by Carey) won't be able to survive except for the ones that have a unique brand value and strong endowment that allows them to bridge the divide. Stanford and Harvard will continue to exist as will many of the top 50 USNWR schools, and even thrive, but they will have used this experience to really play with technology as a means of supporting students outside the classroom and even off location (e.g., internships, independent study abroad away from a partner university, another pandemic), while slashing costs for facilities and faculty. This will allow them to grow their classes (maybe 2-3x) because of lower requirements for students to all be on campus at the same time, but this would not be opening it up to the world. But with the fallout of schools like Northeastern University and Santa Clara University being forced to shut down, Harvard and Stanford will still be able to easily fill their classes, and the bachelor degree will again rise in value. 

Also hit hard in this is going to be the professional academic class. Less schools coupled with increased capacity for the remaining schools to teach more students with less resources is going to make a miserable field even more miserable. 

That's my two cents.

[JustAnotherFan]

A nice read is The End of College by Kevin Carey. In it he repeatedly argues that much of the problem is that we've evolved a "hybrid-university" that tries to (1) train workers [credentialing], (2) provide a broad based education [liberal arts], and (3) allow professional scholars to research and create knowledge [research]. And by doing all things at once it does none of them very well. Everyone who cares about higher education knows that that's generally true except for maybe the third priority, and that the students are not being well served by this model. 

Stepping back we know that the most important benefit to the student of going to college is certainly not 2 or 3, and in terms of 1 it is almost entirely credentialing and signaling that matters. We know that many jobs require a degree to get a foot in the door so that is what people have been going to college for. And that employers need a screen so they fall back on selective universities to start the screening process. But the actual economic value of a degree is mostly gained in the final semester of school (the difference in expected salary of a student who leaves college at the beginning of freshman year versus who leaves at the beginning of senior year is much smaller than the difference of the student who leaves senior year versus graduating). It's not about the content or even the experience of college that is valuable to students -- it is the credentialing and signaling that matters. 

Can Stanford or Harvard create a platform that would allow anyone to be able to access it in a post-pandemic world? No, not without destroying what they have. Harvard has experimented with the Extension School as a way to make access to Harvard more accessible at least to people willing to live in Boston. It may be a money maker for them but it hardly confers the benefits of Harvard on the working class. Working class (and brand chasers) who get a degree at the Extension School pay boatloads of money just to have a Harvard degree that people scoff at once they learn that it was an Extension School degree. To create an online degree that was more widely accessible Harvard would need to invest in protecting the brand of the college (and business school and law school and medical school) by distancing an online degree from their other degrees. At some point one has to ask themselves, without selective admissions that starts the screening process, why go to an online Harvard (or Stanford or MIT) when they can do so with Arizona State (or Apple or Amazon) for much cheaper?

I think the future of Higher Ed looks more like the recently departed Clay Christensen suggested ... half of the colleges and universities are going to cease to exist (his timeline for this prediction passed before he did, but it may still happen in the next five years). The colleges that remain will be supported by the state but politicians will consolidate resources toward flagship universities and begin shutting down directional colleges and community colleges to keep those universities afloat. Small liberal arts colleges that actually focused on the liberal arts (#2 goal mentioned by Carey) won't be able to survive except for the ones that have a unique brand value and strong endowment that allows them to bridge the divide. Stanford and Harvard will continue to exist as will many of the top 50 USNWR schools, and even thrive, but they will have used this experience to really play with technology as a means of supporting students outside the classroom and even off location (e.g., internships, independent study abroad away from a partner university, another pandemic), while slashing costs for facilities and faculty. This will allow them to grow their classes (maybe 2-3x) because of lower requirements for students to all be on campus at the same time, but this would not be opening it up to the world. But with the fallout of schools like Northeastern University and Santa Clara University being forced to shut down, Harvard and Stanford will still be able to easily fill their classes, and the bachelor degree will again rise in value. 

Also hit hard in this is going to be the professional academic class. Less schools coupled with increased capacity for the remaining schools to teach more students with less resources is going to make a miserable field even more miserable. 

That's my two cents.

[2006alum]

Still haven't had time to write a thoughtful response to some great comments, but for now, an NYU Professor seems to agree with many of us that in the post-COVID-19 world, higher ed will no longer be able to get away with insane pricing in exchange for exclusivity credentialing, and that there will be many institutional victims along the way:

[tweet]https://twitter.com/YahooFinance/status/1252719533871300611?s=20[/tweet]

[2006alum]

Still haven't had time to write a thoughtful response to some great comments, but for now, an NYU Professor seems to agree with many of us that in the post-COVID-19 world, higher ed will no longer be able to get away with insane pricing in exchange for exclusivity credentialing, and that there will be many institutional victims along the way:

[tweet]https://twitter.com/YahooFinance/status/1252719533871300611?s=20[/tweet]

[cardcrimson]

Also hit hard in this is going to be the professional academic class. 

A silver lining in every cloud. . . .The best news for freedom of thought in a hundred years!

[cardcrimson]

Also hit hard in this is going to be the professional academic class. 

A silver lining in every cloud. . . .The best news for freedom of thought in a hundred years!

[UltimateCard]

Domestic Enrollment
Some of you have already talked about questioning the value of paying sticker for expensive private schools when your kids are sitting the next room over absorbing lectures by Zoom. My guess is we'll see increased enrollment at community college (in part for folks retraining who were laid off), as well as commuter state schools where a lot of students lived at home anyway. I doubt many 18-year-olds would put off college for a year altogether, but I have to imagine that, at the margins, if I live in SoCal, Pomona suddenly looks a lot more attractive than Williams. If I'm choosing between Georgetown and Berkeley and I live in Maryland, Georgetown seems obvious. My suspicion is that we'll see a return to more regional patterns in college attendance that had diminished over the past several decades. 

*For those of you with kids deciding on college, or with friends and family who have kids deciding, what are they thinking? I'd be curious to hear how this decision calculus is being made.

FWIW - I feel so sorry for the Class of 2020 and the Class of 2024.
The Class of 2020 will enter the worst job market, potentially in the more than a century.  Ugh.
The Class of 2024 might start their time at colleges without ever stepping foot on that colleges' campus.   Virtual Freshmen Orientation sounds like an awful experience.  If I had a child set to be a member of the Class of 2024, I would definitely encourage my child to explore Gap Year opportunities.

Ummm, that would be me. Older son graduating from Northwestern, admitted to Master's program at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. Younger son graduating from high school, admitted to Brown. Still committed to attending but seriously considering taking a gap year if distance learning is the default. They're thinking about continuing their Mandarin language studies at a university in China or Taiwan, which would be kind of a fun adventure for them to study abroad together. Maybe things will then be back to "normal" by Fall of 2021 or at least distance learning will be better by then (whether $70k better remains to be seen). Younger son is a bit torn as he'd like to start college with his cohort. We've got a couple of months before deferral deadlines force a decision. 

P.S. +1000 on Mary Sunseri. She made Calc at 8 am bearable!

An update: Son #2 learned that Brown has moved their deferral deadline UP to May 15 before there is any certainty about the fall. Seems like president Paxson (who is an economist) and her administration are trying to preserve their enrollment numbers - totally understandable from their standpoint and was basically the point in her NYTimes op-ed. So much for leaving options open and making informed decisions if you’re paying the tuition.

[UltimateCard]

Domestic Enrollment
Some of you have already talked about questioning the value of paying sticker for expensive private schools when your kids are sitting the next room over absorbing lectures by Zoom. My guess is we'll see increased enrollment at community college (in part for folks retraining who were laid off), as well as commuter state schools where a lot of students lived at home anyway. I doubt many 18-year-olds would put off college for a year altogether, but I have to imagine that, at the margins, if I live in SoCal, Pomona suddenly looks a lot more attractive than Williams. If I'm choosing between Georgetown and Berkeley and I live in Maryland, Georgetown seems obvious. My suspicion is that we'll see a return to more regional patterns in college attendance that had diminished over the past several decades. 

*For those of you with kids deciding on college, or with friends and family who have kids deciding, what are they thinking? I'd be curious to hear how this decision calculus is being made.

FWIW - I feel so sorry for the Class of 2020 and the Class of 2024.
The Class of 2020 will enter the worst job market, potentially in the more than a century.  Ugh.
The Class of 2024 might start their time at colleges without ever stepping foot on that colleges' campus.   Virtual Freshmen Orientation sounds like an awful experience.  If I had a child set to be a member of the Class of 2024, I would definitely encourage my child to explore Gap Year opportunities.

Ummm, that would be me. Older son graduating from Northwestern, admitted to Master's program at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. Younger son graduating from high school, admitted to Brown. Still committed to attending but seriously considering taking a gap year if distance learning is the default. They're thinking about continuing their Mandarin language studies at a university in China or Taiwan, which would be kind of a fun adventure for them to study abroad together. Maybe things will then be back to "normal" by Fall of 2021 or at least distance learning will be better by then (whether $70k better remains to be seen). Younger son is a bit torn as he'd like to start college with his cohort. We've got a couple of months before deferral deadlines force a decision. 

P.S. +1000 on Mary Sunseri. She made Calc at 8 am bearable!

An update: Son #2 learned that Brown has moved their deferral deadline UP to May 15 before there is any certainty about the fall. Seems like president Paxson (who is an economist) and her administration are trying to preserve their enrollment numbers - totally understandable from their standpoint and was basically the point in her NYTimes op-ed. So much for leaving options open and making informed decisions if you’re paying the tuition.

[2006alum]

Thanks for the update, UC, and sorry to hear they're forcing your son's hand before he has proper time to decide what he might do with a deferral year and understand what Brown's fall semester is likely to look like.

Interestingly, there was a front page article in the WSJ today (paywalled), which indicated that many colleges are giving longer windows of time to make enrollment decisions, though it didn't say much about whether colleges are changing their deferral policies. 

One thing is for sure: I would NOT want to be in charge of operating a university right now. It really does seem to be the perfect storm for higher ed, much of which was going to hit eventually, but almost all of which is crashing ashore at once.

I will be genuinely curious to see if schools post their admissions yield statistics the way they normally do, because I have to assume almost all but the top unis will be digging deep into wait lists given the probability that a good chunk of admits choose to defer.

[2006alum]

Thanks for the update, UC, and sorry to hear they're forcing your son's hand before he has proper time to decide what he might do with a deferral year and understand what Brown's fall semester is likely to look like.

Interestingly, there was a front page article in the WSJ today (paywalled), which indicated that many colleges are giving longer windows of time to make enrollment decisions, though it didn't say much about whether colleges are changing their deferral policies. 

One thing is for sure: I would NOT want to be in charge of operating a university right now. It really does seem to be the perfect storm for higher ed, much of which was going to hit eventually, but almost all of which is crashing ashore at once.

I will be genuinely curious to see if schools post their admissions yield statistics the way they normally do, because I have to assume almost all but the top unis will be digging deep into wait lists given the probability that a good chunk of admits choose to defer.

[oldalum]

the probability that a good chunk of admits choose to defer.

which would have obvious downstream effects on the H.S. class of 2021, and even maybe '22.

[oldalum]

the probability that a good chunk of admits choose to defer.

which would have obvious downstream effects on the H.S. class of 2021, and even maybe '22.

[UltimateCard]

Thanks for the update, UC, and sorry to hear they're forcing your son's hand before he has proper time to decide what he might do with a deferral year and understand what Brown's fall semester is likely to look like.

Interestingly, there was a front page article in the WSJ today (paywalled), which indicated that many colleges are giving longer windows of time to make enrollment decisions, though it didn't say much about whether colleges are changing their deferral policies. 

One thing is for sure: I would NOT want to be in charge of operating a university right now. It really does seem to be the perfect storm for higher ed, much of which was going to hit eventually, but almost all of which is crashing ashore at once.

I will be genuinely curious to see if schools post their admissions yield statistics the way they normally do, because I have to assume almost all but the top unis will be digging deep into wait lists given the probability that a good chunk of admits choose to defer.

Ooof, I think I'm getting an allergic reaction to being called UC... should've thought about that before choosing my user name.

Speaking of lack of foresight, I never would've thought that analyzing 990 returns (which I do for my work) should be part of the college search process but given what's happening as a result of COVID-19, it's not a bad idea if your kid is in the Class of '21 or '22. Brown has the smallest endowment of the Ivies. Perhaps related to that, a search of their 990 reveals that its Liquid Unrestricted Net Assets (LUNA) aren't exactly robust. Calculating the ratio of LUNA to annual operating expenses, the figure is just above 1. In other words, Brown can cover only a year's worth of operating expenses through simple financial transactions. They will have to look at liquidating assets and/or cutting expenses if their revenues take a big hit. For comparison, Stanford's ratio is about 3.4 on their 2018 990. So it's not surprising that Brown is taking aggressive enrollment management measures. We don't regret applying early decision - it's a great fit for Son #2. It just sucks that his experience may be punctuated by interruptions in instruction and program cuts.

[UltimateCard]

Thanks for the update, UC, and sorry to hear they're forcing your son's hand before he has proper time to decide what he might do with a deferral year and understand what Brown's fall semester is likely to look like.

Interestingly, there was a front page article in the WSJ today (paywalled), which indicated that many colleges are giving longer windows of time to make enrollment decisions, though it didn't say much about whether colleges are changing their deferral policies. 

One thing is for sure: I would NOT want to be in charge of operating a university right now. It really does seem to be the perfect storm for higher ed, much of which was going to hit eventually, but almost all of which is crashing ashore at once.

I will be genuinely curious to see if schools post their admissions yield statistics the way they normally do, because I have to assume almost all but the top unis will be digging deep into wait lists given the probability that a good chunk of admits choose to defer.

Ooof, I think I'm getting an allergic reaction to being called UC... should've thought about that before choosing my user name.

Speaking of lack of foresight, I never would've thought that analyzing 990 returns (which I do for my work) should be part of the college search process but given what's happening as a result of COVID-19, it's not a bad idea if your kid is in the Class of '21 or '22. Brown has the smallest endowment of the Ivies. Perhaps related to that, a search of their 990 reveals that its Liquid Unrestricted Net Assets (LUNA) aren't exactly robust. Calculating the ratio of LUNA to annual operating expenses, the figure is just above 1. In other words, Brown can cover only a year's worth of operating expenses through simple financial transactions. They will have to look at liquidating assets and/or cutting expenses if their revenues take a big hit. For comparison, Stanford's ratio is about 3.4 on their 2018 990. So it's not surprising that Brown is taking aggressive enrollment management measures. We don't regret applying early decision - it's a great fit for Son #2. It just sucks that his experience may be punctuated by interruptions in instruction and program cuts.

[fullmetal]

Stanford recently gave up on expanding the undergraduate class sizes. Palo Alto and Santa Clara County made it impossible to get through the environmental impact hurdles.

I'm familiar with Stanford's struggles with the county over the GUP, but did they really give-up give up?  It was my impression that undergraduate expansion was an eternal goal that might fade as appropriate but never disappear.  I am not in favor of eternal growth (that's unsustainable), but making the Stanford experience accessible to more students surely isn't a bad thing.  Alas, infrastructure demands.

[fullmetal]

Stanford recently gave up on expanding the undergraduate class sizes. Palo Alto and Santa Clara County made it impossible to get through the environmental impact hurdles.

I'm familiar with Stanford's struggles with the county over the GUP, but did they really give-up give up?  It was my impression that undergraduate expansion was an eternal goal that might fade as appropriate but never disappear.  I am not in favor of eternal growth (that's unsustainable), but making the Stanford experience accessible to more students surely isn't a bad thing.  Alas, infrastructure demands.

[UltimateCard]

Thanks for the update, UC, and sorry to hear they're forcing your son's hand before he has proper time to decide what he might do with a deferral year and understand what Brown's fall semester is likely to look like.

Interestingly, there was a front page article in the WSJ today (paywalled), which indicated that many colleges are giving longer windows of time to make enrollment decisions, though it didn't say much about whether colleges are changing their deferral policies. 

One thing is for sure: I would NOT want to be in charge of operating a university right now. It really does seem to be the perfect storm for higher ed, much of which was going to hit eventually, but almost all of which is crashing ashore at once.

I will be genuinely curious to see if schools post their admissions yield statistics the way they normally do, because I have to assume almost all but the top unis will be digging deep into wait lists given the probability that a good chunk of admits choose to defer.

Ooof, I think I'm getting an allergic reaction to being called UC... should've thought about that before choosing my user name.

Speaking of lack of foresight, I never would've thought that analyzing 990 returns (which I do for my work) should be part of the college search process but given what's happening as a result of COVID-19, it's not a bad idea if your kid is in the Class of '21 or '22. Brown has the smallest endowment of the Ivies. Perhaps related to that, a search of their 990 reveals that its Liquid Unrestricted Net Assets (LUNA) aren't exactly robust. Calculating the ratio of LUNA to annual operating expenses, the figure is just above 1. In other words, Brown can cover only a year's worth of operating expenses through simple financial transactions. They will have to look at liquidating assets and/or cutting expenses if their revenues take a big hit. For comparison, Stanford's ratio is about 3.4 on their 2018 990. So it's not surprising that Brown is taking aggressive enrollment management measures. We don't regret applying early decision - it's a great fit for Son #2. It just sucks that his experience may be punctuated by interruptions in instruction and program cuts.

Brown set July 15 as date for announcing fall plans. They’re considering the Dartmouth model, i.e., “shift to fall, spring and summer terms, with students only attending two out of these three semesters.” This article in their student paper describes the three options under consideration and addresses liquidity issues:
https://www.browndailyherald.com/2020/05...emic-year/

[UltimateCard]

Thanks for the update, UC, and sorry to hear they're forcing your son's hand before he has proper time to decide what he might do with a deferral year and understand what Brown's fall semester is likely to look like.

Interestingly, there was a front page article in the WSJ today (paywalled), which indicated that many colleges are giving longer windows of time to make enrollment decisions, though it didn't say much about whether colleges are changing their deferral policies. 

One thing is for sure: I would NOT want to be in charge of operating a university right now. It really does seem to be the perfect storm for higher ed, much of which was going to hit eventually, but almost all of which is crashing ashore at once.

I will be genuinely curious to see if schools post their admissions yield statistics the way they normally do, because I have to assume almost all but the top unis will be digging deep into wait lists given the probability that a good chunk of admits choose to defer.

Ooof, I think I'm getting an allergic reaction to being called UC... should've thought about that before choosing my user name.

Speaking of lack of foresight, I never would've thought that analyzing 990 returns (which I do for my work) should be part of the college search process but given what's happening as a result of COVID-19, it's not a bad idea if your kid is in the Class of '21 or '22. Brown has the smallest endowment of the Ivies. Perhaps related to that, a search of their 990 reveals that its Liquid Unrestricted Net Assets (LUNA) aren't exactly robust. Calculating the ratio of LUNA to annual operating expenses, the figure is just above 1. In other words, Brown can cover only a year's worth of operating expenses through simple financial transactions. They will have to look at liquidating assets and/or cutting expenses if their revenues take a big hit. For comparison, Stanford's ratio is about 3.4 on their 2018 990. So it's not surprising that Brown is taking aggressive enrollment management measures. We don't regret applying early decision - it's a great fit for Son #2. It just sucks that his experience may be punctuated by interruptions in instruction and program cuts.

Brown set July 15 as date for announcing fall plans. They’re considering the Dartmouth model, i.e., “shift to fall, spring and summer terms, with students only attending two out of these three semesters.” This article in their student paper describes the three options under consideration and addresses liquidity issues:
https://www.browndailyherald.com/2020/05...emic-year/

[81alum]

Announced at yesterday's Board of Trustees.

And not only that.  It sounds increasingly likely it may be the whole year.

Mr. White, the Cal State chancellor, noted that academic researchers and public health experts were predicting a “second, smaller wave” of the coronavirus this summer, “followed by a very significant wave” in the fall and another wave in the first quarter of next year.

With no vaccine on the immediate horizon, Mr. White told the system’s trustees that “it would be irresponsible” to postpone a decision on in-person classes until summer, only to be forced to retreat hastily to remote learning in the fall.

I'm sure we all understand what this means for sports if most other universities follow suit.  I'm depressed.

The CSU has 450,000 students and a campus (mine) just miles away from Stanford.

[81alum]

Announced at yesterday's Board of Trustees.

And not only that.  It sounds increasingly likely it may be the whole year.

Mr. White, the Cal State chancellor, noted that academic researchers and public health experts were predicting a “second, smaller wave” of the coronavirus this summer, “followed by a very significant wave” in the fall and another wave in the first quarter of next year.

With no vaccine on the immediate horizon, Mr. White told the system’s trustees that “it would be irresponsible” to postpone a decision on in-person classes until summer, only to be forced to retreat hastily to remote learning in the fall.

I'm sure we all understand what this means for sports if most other universities follow suit.  I'm depressed.

The CSU has 450,000 students and a campus (mine) just miles away from Stanford.

[2006alum]

81, thanks for this, and me too. I merged this into our ongoing discussion of impact on Higher Ed, just to keep all of these stories in one place, since I suspect there will be many more, unfortunately...

[2006alum]

81, thanks for this, and me too. I merged this into our ongoing discussion of impact on Higher Ed, just to keep all of these stories in one place, since I suspect there will be many more, unfortunately...

[82lsju]

Yesterday Christina Paxson, the president of Brown University in Rhode Island, proposed a path to reopening universities in the fall, just in time to welcome students and their tuition back from quarantine. Paxson is an economist, and forthright about why those tuition checks matter: “Remaining closed in the fall means losing as much as half of our revenue,” she writes, and for many colleges, losing half a year’s tuition would mean bankruptcy. The solution, she says, is to “test, trace, separate”—in other words, to do in universities what the United States has failed to do as a country, but what Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea have done with some success.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...e=facebook

[82lsju]

Yesterday Christina Paxson, the president of Brown University in Rhode Island, proposed a path to reopening universities in the fall, just in time to welcome students and their tuition back from quarantine. Paxson is an economist, and forthright about why those tuition checks matter: “Remaining closed in the fall means losing as much as half of our revenue,” she writes, and for many colleges, losing half a year’s tuition would mean bankruptcy. The solution, she says, is to “test, trace, separate”—in other words, to do in universities what the United States has failed to do as a country, but what Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea have done with some success.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...e=facebook

[BostonCard]

Nothing new in this article, but a good summation:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/upsho...ategy.html

The higher education landscape is now in chaos. Last year, 419 colleges were still accepting applications for the freshman class after the traditional May 1 deadline. This year, the number is 754, suggesting an enormous drop in demand. If campuses can’t open this fall, or students don’t return, the private higher education sector faces a financial asteroid strike. Edmit updated its projections accordingly and published a less specific version of them this month. The numbers suggest many colleges are now at risk.

...

Edmit examined financial trends at 937 private universities and added a conservative estimate of the Covid-19 impact: tuition losses of 10 percent in 2020 and 20 percent in 2021, a 20 percent decline in endowment earnings, and an offsetting 10 percent reduction in spending on salaries. Edmit did not estimate reductions in housing revenue, but colleges face millions of dollars in losses if dorms remain unoccupied.

Those assumptions increased the number of colleges ranked with “Low” financial health — defined as being on track to run out of money within six years — by nearly 50 percent, to 345, more than one-third of all private colleges studied.

BC

[BostonCard]

Nothing new in this article, but a good summation:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/upsho...ategy.html

The higher education landscape is now in chaos. Last year, 419 colleges were still accepting applications for the freshman class after the traditional May 1 deadline. This year, the number is 754, suggesting an enormous drop in demand. If campuses can’t open this fall, or students don’t return, the private higher education sector faces a financial asteroid strike. Edmit updated its projections accordingly and published a less specific version of them this month. The numbers suggest many colleges are now at risk.

...

Edmit examined financial trends at 937 private universities and added a conservative estimate of the Covid-19 impact: tuition losses of 10 percent in 2020 and 20 percent in 2021, a 20 percent decline in endowment earnings, and an offsetting 10 percent reduction in spending on salaries. Edmit did not estimate reductions in housing revenue, but colleges face millions of dollars in losses if dorms remain unoccupied.

Those assumptions increased the number of colleges ranked with “Low” financial health — defined as being on track to run out of money within six years — by nearly 50 percent, to 345, more than one-third of all private colleges studied.

BC

[Mick]

Nothing new in this article, but a good summation:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/upsho...ategy.html

The higher education landscape is now in chaos. Last year, 419 colleges were still accepting applications for the freshman class after the traditional May 1 deadline. This year, the number is 754, suggesting an enormous drop in demand. If campuses can’t open this fall, or students don’t return, the private higher education sector faces a financial asteroid strike. Edmit updated its projections accordingly and published a less specific version of them this month. The numbers suggest many colleges are now at risk.

...

Edmit examined financial trends at 937 private universities and added a conservative estimate of the Covid-19 impact: tuition losses of 10 percent in 2020 and 20 percent in 2021, a 20 percent decline in endowment earnings, and an offsetting 10 percent reduction in spending on salaries. Edmit did not estimate reductions in housing revenue, but colleges face millions of dollars in losses if dorms remain unoccupied.

Those assumptions increased the number of colleges ranked with “Low” financial health — defined as being on track to run out of money within six years — by nearly 50 percent, to 345, more than one-third of all private colleges studied.

BC

I think there's four trends at play here:

1) Cost of college is always sky-high.  In and of itself, it would be enough to make a student and his/her family pause.
2) The digital college experience pales in comparison to the in-person experience.
3) Income in many/most households is unpredictable and possibly not adequate for expensive college.
4) Who knows whither financial aid?

I suspect that many students and their families may opt for a gap year, perhaps far more than colleges anticipate. I know if I was a student, I would insist on a gap year.  If I had to take digital courses, the local juco would suffice just fine.  And I wouldn't want to pay full boat rates for an impersonal experience.  And what will the yields be, even for colleges that opt for the in-person experience?  What percentage of students will actually want to take that risk?  Or the professors and staff, for that matter?

[Mick]

Nothing new in this article, but a good summation:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/upsho...ategy.html

The higher education landscape is now in chaos. Last year, 419 colleges were still accepting applications for the freshman class after the traditional May 1 deadline. This year, the number is 754, suggesting an enormous drop in demand. If campuses can’t open this fall, or students don’t return, the private higher education sector faces a financial asteroid strike. Edmit updated its projections accordingly and published a less specific version of them this month. The numbers suggest many colleges are now at risk.

...

Edmit examined financial trends at 937 private universities and added a conservative estimate of the Covid-19 impact: tuition losses of 10 percent in 2020 and 20 percent in 2021, a 20 percent decline in endowment earnings, and an offsetting 10 percent reduction in spending on salaries. Edmit did not estimate reductions in housing revenue, but colleges face millions of dollars in losses if dorms remain unoccupied.

Those assumptions increased the number of colleges ranked with “Low” financial health — defined as being on track to run out of money within six years — by nearly 50 percent, to 345, more than one-third of all private colleges studied.

BC

I think there's four trends at play here:

1) Cost of college is always sky-high.  In and of itself, it would be enough to make a student and his/her family pause.
2) The digital college experience pales in comparison to the in-person experience.
3) Income in many/most households is unpredictable and possibly not adequate for expensive college.
4) Who knows whither financial aid?

I suspect that many students and their families may opt for a gap year, perhaps far more than colleges anticipate. I know if I was a student, I would insist on a gap year.  If I had to take digital courses, the local juco would suffice just fine.  And I wouldn't want to pay full boat rates for an impersonal experience.  And what will the yields be, even for colleges that opt for the in-person experience?  What percentage of students will actually want to take that risk?  Or the professors and staff, for that matter?

[BostonCard]

I think there's four trends at play here:


1) Cost of college is always sky-high.  In and of itself, it would be enough to make a student and his/her family pause.

2) The digital college experience pales in comparison to the in-person experience.

3) Income in many/most households is unpredictable and possibly not adequate for expensive college.

4) Who knows whither financial aid?



I suspect that many students and their families may opt for a gap year, perhaps far more than colleges anticipate. I know if I was a student, I would insist on a gap year.  If I had to take digital courses, the local juco would suffice just fine.  And I wouldn't want to pay full boat rates for an impersonal experience.  And what will the yields be, even for colleges that opt for the in-person experience?  What percentage of students will actually want to take that risk?  Or the professors and staff, for that matter?

A contrarian view here is that because a large number of people might take a gap year, the chances of getting into a school off your waitlist are higher, so if you are willing to chance your freshman year being partially or completely conducted over zoom, you might get into a school you wouldn't have otherwise.  The longterm benefits probably outweigh the short term downsides.

BC

[BostonCard]

I think there's four trends at play here:


1) Cost of college is always sky-high.  In and of itself, it would be enough to make a student and his/her family pause.

2) The digital college experience pales in comparison to the in-person experience.

3) Income in many/most households is unpredictable and possibly not adequate for expensive college.

4) Who knows whither financial aid?



I suspect that many students and their families may opt for a gap year, perhaps far more than colleges anticipate. I know if I was a student, I would insist on a gap year.  If I had to take digital courses, the local juco would suffice just fine.  And I wouldn't want to pay full boat rates for an impersonal experience.  And what will the yields be, even for colleges that opt for the in-person experience?  What percentage of students will actually want to take that risk?  Or the professors and staff, for that matter?

A contrarian view here is that because a large number of people might take a gap year, the chances of getting into a school off your waitlist are higher, so if you are willing to chance your freshman year being partially or completely conducted over zoom, you might get into a school you wouldn't have otherwise.  The longterm benefits probably outweigh the short term downsides.

BC

[Mick]

I think there's four trends at play here:


1) Cost of college is always sky-high.  In and of itself, it would be enough to make a student and his/her family pause.

2) The digital college experience pales in comparison to the in-person experience.

3) Income in many/most households is unpredictable and possibly not adequate for expensive college.

4) Who knows whither financial aid?



I suspect that many students and their families may opt for a gap year, perhaps far more than colleges anticipate. I know if I was a student, I would insist on a gap year.  If I had to take digital courses, the local juco would suffice just fine.  And I wouldn't want to pay full boat rates for an impersonal experience.  And what will the yields be, even for colleges that opt for the in-person experience?  What percentage of students will actually want to take that risk?  Or the professors and staff, for that matter?

A contrarian view here is that because a large number of people might take a gap year, the chances of getting into a school off your waitlist are higher, so if you are willing to chance your freshman year being partially or completely conducted over zoom, you might get into a school you wouldn't have otherwise.  The longterm benefits probably outweigh the short term downsides.

BC

Excellent point.  Particularly if you want to go to Brown, whose President has already stated that Brown will be open for in-person business.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/26/opini...ities.html

[Mick]

I think there's four trends at play here:


1) Cost of college is always sky-high.  In and of itself, it would be enough to make a student and his/her family pause.

2) The digital college experience pales in comparison to the in-person experience.

3) Income in many/most households is unpredictable and possibly not adequate for expensive college.

4) Who knows whither financial aid?



I suspect that many students and their families may opt for a gap year, perhaps far more than colleges anticipate. I know if I was a student, I would insist on a gap year.  If I had to take digital courses, the local juco would suffice just fine.  And I wouldn't want to pay full boat rates for an impersonal experience.  And what will the yields be, even for colleges that opt for the in-person experience?  What percentage of students will actually want to take that risk?  Or the professors and staff, for that matter?

A contrarian view here is that because a large number of people might take a gap year, the chances of getting into a school off your waitlist are higher, so if you are willing to chance your freshman year being partially or completely conducted over zoom, you might get into a school you wouldn't have otherwise.  The longterm benefits probably outweigh the short term downsides.

BC

Excellent point.  Particularly if you want to go to Brown, whose President has already stated that Brown will be open for in-person business.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/26/opini...ities.html

[chrisk]

HBS is at capacity for the fall, but has offered a 1 or 2 year deferment to all admits. By early June, they will determine whether they will need to use the waitlist to fill spots opened up by deferments. One wildcard is the number of international students who will be able to come to the US. It sounds like they are willing to operate below capacity this year and they must believe they have the financial wherewithal to do so.

[chrisk]

HBS is at capacity for the fall, but has offered a 1 or 2 year deferment to all admits. By early June, they will determine whether they will need to use the waitlist to fill spots opened up by deferments. One wildcard is the number of international students who will be able to come to the US. It sounds like they are willing to operate below capacity this year and they must believe they have the financial wherewithal to do so.