Will universities close?

[GREENBACK]

I was shocked at the lavishness of the rooms in the new dorm buildings.)

.

I wonder if these schools ever really look at cutting costs instead of asking for more money. When I first went to college I stayed in a dorm that had no a/c and not much heat and was very basic and small. This was the football players dorm and was better than most others.

[asmom]

Morris Brown, a historically black college just outside Atlanta, is very close to shutting down.

From wikipedia:

"The school has $22 million in long-term debt and $5 million in short term debt. Both the alumni association and the African Methodist Episcopal Church have pledged to keep the school from closing. As of January 2009, Morris Brown has 240 students. In December 2008, the City of Atlanta disconnected water service to the college due to an overdue water bill [13]. The college president is pleading for $1.5 Million to keep the school open."

Morris Brown is not shutting down. (Oh and it's in the heart of Atlanta not outside). It has been on deathwatch for several years but it has a very committed alumni. The water has been turned back on and it will continue to flow. It's been here since 1881 and we're not going anywhere.

Morris Brown class of '91

[asmom]

So far here in Georgia there is talk about "merging" some of the HBCUs with other colleges which really means they want to shut them down.


Plan #2 is to restrict enrollment in order to maintain quality. I know that's funny to hear someone use the words "quality" and "education" in the same sentence when you're talking about Georgia but that's what he said. Later he(the Chancellor of the University System of Georgia) admitted that the real concern was faculty salaries.

[banditfist]

My MBA econ class was taught by the Dean of the Business School. This was in the late 1990's. I remember him commenting that it was harder to get the enrollment up during economic boom times. People see jobs and money. But in recession, they don't. Recessions are the best thing for grad schools.

BUT! We are dealing with a little bit different situation now. Colleges and universities have raised their tuition at rates far greater than inflation for years while increasing enrollment.

Just like everything else, there will be a reversion to the mean.

[TBH]

Like others have said, community colleges also benefit from recessions because more people go back to school.

Many schools rely partially on endowments, which are of course all in the toilet right now along with any other money that is invested in the stock market.

There are talks of cuts at colleges around here but I don't have much info yet. Where I work we've been warned that there are no cuts "yet" but there will be come summer.

[cptacek]

Getting ready to thrust this thread into a different direction...

I wonder if lowering prices might help. Might work like lowering taxes on investing. Raising costs and expenditures, does not work in any arena. IMO.

We are talking about the bastions of liberalism here. Of course they won't subscribe to "trickle down" anything.

[Ralph]

I think the credit crunch will force many out of college. Hopefully the prices will start dropping - they are totally out of touch with reality.

[Cassandra]

My school has faced a lot of budget cuts. No faculty has been let go because of the budget cuts but they have cut a lot of programs (free tutoring, career center, etc.). and raised tuition. They are also thinking of cutting some of the foreign language departments, mainly the French and German ones. Which means I need to declare my French minor very, very soon...

[Like2Plan]

They haven't set tuition rates for next year, yet. But on the news they said it looked like with the budget shortfalls, they are looking at a 10% increase for VA schools...

[disneysteve]

On a separate but related note, I read recently that we will probably see a number of hospital closures in 2009 as they succumb to rising costs, shrinking insurance reimbursement, higher default from patients who can't pay their bills and cut backs in state aid for treating the uninsured.

There was an article in the Philly paper about a specialty breast cancer hospital in Bucks County, PA that announced they are closing next month, so this is, in fact, happening.