(04-27-2020 07:01 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  Oregon committed to opening in the fall. Why?

"The UO is tuition-dependent and Schill noted that national experts have estimated a 15 percent reduction in enrollment. The Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission also has instructed the UO to plan for the possibility of an initial 17 percent reduction in state appropriations next year."

https://around.uoregon.edu/content/uo-ma...nouncement

That's a double whammy. State budgets are going to be tighter for at least this year.

(04-27-2020 03:19 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(04-27-2020 02:50 PM)bullet Wrote:  At this point I expect it to be face to face, but there will be a lot fewer speakers and other events. Its going to be different. I can't imagine football. So we're probably going with the first choice bigger name college experience school as opposed to a couple of the less expensive options that we might have chosen if we knew it would be online.

Yeah, it will be interesting.

The biggest challenge is simply how to deal with housing. There are few places that are less well-suited to social distancing than a college dorm.

So, even if you could conceivably have larger spaced out lecture halls, incorporation of more online learning, no mass gatherings like football or basketball games, etc., does any of that work if students still sleep in dorms where two or more people are packed into rooms that are smaller than the home office that I use now and there are communal bathrooms? Do the economics of student housing allow for fewer students to live in dorms in order to have some sort of semblance social distancing? (My guess is "no" on that front.) Let's face it - all it takes is one case in a dorm and you have a possible (probable?) super-spreader situation.

Putting aside the specific impact on colleges, this has been a really frustrating situation for a fairly pragmatic person like myself. I'm all about compromise in an effort to move forward as a general matter, but COVID-19 has presented a problem where there really isn't a "halfway" compromise solution. It's not as if though opening up, say, 50% of businesses means that there's now only 50% of the risk compared to fully opening up, but rather that it could still be 90%-plus of the risk. Nothing about this pandemic is linear - each single case can have an exponential impact on a community. That's what makes it so hard to find anything that's considered to be a compromise position here. It feels like it's either all or nothing in so many situations.

I heard of one school that was considering using hotels to spread students out.

(04-27-2020 11:26 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  The Ivy League schools and their peers are NOT the problem here when it comes to costs.

We might have to define "peers," because quite a few of these great schools really don't help the kids out much; the threshold (is) high for aid. That's by design, though, if you're simply trying to keep your costs competitive with other peer institutions. Like, pay Penn State-ish prices for NYU...but that's not saying too much given how tight PSU can be with their aid and other costs.

Maybe it's changed some, but, those folks who went to the "good," small private baccalaureate schools were the ones getting the good deals. Those schools, because their endowments aren't like the big guys, are the ones I worry about. The ones that have to keep up with the big state schools and private ivies but don't carry the name. These are the schools who fall into eventual obscurity and then shutter because they're simply lost in the mix.

But, sadly, I agree with what you say about people ultimately not giving up their slots at some of these big name schools. I fear that's gotten worse, especially as businesses partner with certain institutions to pipeline future talent.

However, again, I do feel there will be spats over costs even at these places. My Brown or Penn experience wasn't what you got, and yet I paid more, blah, blah, blah. And, while it might not hurt enrollment, I have to believe that future donor line is going to shrivel a bit. There may be some "lost classes" where schools may have to ignore. COVID costs, less giving...the kind of stuff that's probably going to jack up the cost of higher education even more. It's always something.

(04-27-2020 07:09 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(04-27-2020 07:01 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  Oregon committed to opening in the fall. Why?

"The UO is tuition-dependent and Schill noted that national experts have estimated a 15 percent reduction in enrollment. The Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission also has instructed the UO to plan for the possibility of an initial 17 percent reduction in state appropriations next year."

https://around.uoregon.edu/content/uo-ma...nouncement

That's a double whammy. State budgets are going to be tighter for at least this year.

The triple-whammy is from universities with large hospitals. Hospitals are hemorrhaging cash right now (no pun intended)

https://www.modernhealthcare.com/finance...s-pandemic

Quote:The Ohio Hospital Association estimates a $1.2 billion negative financial impact to Ohio hospitals every month — a number expected to increase, said OHA spokesman John Palmer. For perspective, the total revenue for Ohio hospitals averages about $48 billion annually.

This will impact some schools more than others.

San Diego State (with no hospital) will get the double-whammy from the state and dorms, but avoid the hospital losses.

U of Cincinnati will be ok on the real estate side because they've outsourced all new dorms in the last 25 years to private investors. But they'll get crushed on the hospital side.

Indiana will get the hospital and dorm losses but will avoid the state budget cuts.

Purdue has no hospital and the state is in good fiscal health, so they'll only lose dorm revenue.


Schools like Michigan and Illinois and will get hammered on all sides.

(04-26-2020 03:22 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  Lets boycott these schools with this stupid $76,000 per semester fees and all that. You wonder why these private universities are failing because how expensive they are.

Brown is failing? What is this bias towards real schools?
They charge 76K because people are willing to pay it. And they are willing to pay because they should be set once they graduate, if not it's because they royally screwed up.