(04-09-2018 04:38 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Contrary to your statement, there isn't a slowdown in applications at Swarthmore - it had a 14% increase in applications this year and had its lowest acceptance rate ever at 9%:

You're right. I'm still thinking this is 2010, when they started a deliberate admissions increase, with an increase in international students (while the national rate declined). It helped boost the applicant numbers; Swarthmore is taking more people. Still hard as heck to get into. Still not so generous with need-based aid.

To read it from their student paper, the operational budget is seeing some strain against the return of the endowment. Whatever is going on there, they are a whiny bunch. And, it seems what their own say from the inside runs at a contradiction to what other data is out there.

So, bad example. My bad.

There are others like Oberlin out there, but seem to bounce around and back. And it's especially rough when your enrollment isn't very high to begin with. All it takes is a bad recruitment cycle; a bad admissions and recruiting team that isn't super-aggressive in achieving targets (and it's brutal to begin with; it's probably the most thankless role in all of higher ed), and your numbers plummet.

I'm sure heads are rolling at Oberlin for it, or will soon. And, that, too, cuts more than once. It's not uncommon for faculty to kick a place when it feels it's down, and that's obviously happening at Oberlin now. Even for the common sense things, like trimming budgets. It's a class completely out of touch with reality, and they help nobody airing their opinions about it.

(04-11-2018 09:46 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(04-11-2018 12:28 AM)McKinney Wrote:  UMass is going to have to fight tooth and nail to acquire Mt. Ida. What else is new.

The Massachusetts Board of Higher Ed is now requesting information from Mt. Ida's on their plan to shut down the campus. There was an op-ed piece in the Globe on the subject and how this deal is racist.


https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018...story.html

I really hope we come out on top when this is over. Mount Ida - while seemingly a spontaneous acquisition - is a crucial step in UMass' goal to become an AAU-type elite institution. The campus will be used for continuing education programs and I believe will support housing for internship opportunities in Boston. It is planned to also be a career center for alumni and soon-to-be grads for networking, counseling, etc. If this is successful in developing a larger talent-pipeline for Boston's growing STEM and financial fields it would be astronomical to the university's STEM and business programs, not only in prestige and job opportunities (re: rankings) but also in terms of research opportunities.

This will also be beneficial as a home-away-from-home to a large portion of STEM researchers at the university who work on projects with companies in the Boston area (particularly in the biotech and defense industries), but perform a large portion of their research in Amherst and obviously lecture in Amherst. Allowing for greater collaboration.

Maybe they should have followed the Lambuth model. Board voted to close the school. UMemphis came in and acquired the property for an extension campus. Part of the deal if I remember correctly was UMemphis agreed to take over maintaining the Lambuth transcripts.

UMemphis should do the same with the campus of Memphis College of Arts that closed down this year. It gives them more buildings for teaching and all that.