Investment in the academics

[valpo22]

This chart has been getting shared around lots in the last year since COVID/enrollment has exacerbated the economics for so many schools.

What do you guys make of our investment in "instructional wages per full time student" being so low? I know Valpo has fallen behind other schools in terms of investment in the academic side of things, and our outlook here is not looking so great. If VU isn't devoting much of the pie to academic programming/faculty compensation/teaching & research, etc, then where is the money going? Is it all just debt financing, or what do you think?

https:  //docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CUs3HrqstC2oV3CF3_di4yW6Y4K_CIrUJNEEHCCKo7A/edit#gid=0

(remove spaces so link works)

[covufan]

This chart has been getting shared around lots in the last year since COVID/enrollment has exacerbated the economics for so many schools.

What do you guys make of our investment in "instructional wages per full time student" being so low? I know Valpo has fallen behind other schools in terms of investment in the academic side of things, and our outlook here is not looking so great. If VU isn't devoting much of the pie to academic programming/faculty compensation/teaching & research, etc, then where is the money going? Is it all just debt financing, or what do you think?

https:  //docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CUs3HrqstC2oV3CF3_di4yW6Y4K_CIrUJNEEHCCKo7A/edit#gid=0

(remove spaces so link works)

The $$ is going to the Law School. Oh wait, the previous administration lost that academic program


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[crusadermoe]

I only scanned this list, but here are just a few takeaways.

1- Challenged is of course a dire rating and it seems to skew lower to fewer than 20% of the schools. 

2- The value to cost ratio for Valpo is scary.

3- DePauw and Oberlin have very large endowments for small schools but have still put themselves on the "challenged list."  that's quite an achievement by their leadership.  Might this further say, "Go woke...go broke?"

4- Private schools located in small towns seem to be a frequent theme per above two, Valpo, and several others like Knox etc.

It would appear that Pres. Pedilla was hired to slice and dice and get financial reality in place.

[David81]

I'm not sure that "go woke, go broke" explains it.... There are plenty of left-leaning schools on the "survive/thrive" end of the spectrum, and some pretty conservative ones on the "struggle/challenged" end of things (and though not on the list, Calvin College did major layoffs last year). I'm not seeing much of a correlation between ideological persuasion and fiscal stability here.

Indeed, ideological drumbeats aren't the key toward understanding a higher ed funding challenge of national significance. If anything, schools that are at least hospitable to more liberal viewpoints may be at an advantage in student recruiting, as Gen Z as a whole leans more left than right (while also being more quick to reject standard partisan labels).

Outside of the charmed circle of prestigious private schools with wealthy alumni bases and of state-funded flagships with sound public funding and loyal donors, just about everyone else has reason to be nervous. Regional and mid-ranked schools that got comparatively late starts, historically speaking, in building up their endowments are basically at the mercy of declining applicant pools of traditional age college students.

Presidents Schnabel, Harre, and Heckler all contributed to VU playing some good catch-up ball in this department, but other schools of similar reputation and reach were at this game for much longer.

[crusadermoe]

The woke theory only applied to the two highly endowed schools that are still challenged; Oberlin and DePauw.

I seem to remember a group of students at Oberlin rallying to the defense of a kid who provably shoplifted at a store in town. I don't know if the police were later defunded or not, but the store owner was boycotted by the school. They also tried to build all sustainable buildings.  Ok sure.

[David81]

Well, ideologically, Valpo seems sort of middle-of-the-road, or even middle-right. The administration has remained pretty much entirely male/white/Lutheran across the university these last couple decades -- except now Padilla being some sort of Catholic. So too, the faculty and students still hew pretty conservative. There's no faculty union so most the faculty who've taught the long haul of 15 of 20 years on their 50 or 60K salaries seem to do it mostly out of a religious sense of vocation. Meanwhile, most the students aren't activists of any sort but mainly interested in getting jobs and making $ after college, enrolling increasingly for the professional nursing and engineering side of things; students are generally allergic to any sort of ideological/moral conversation but just want to get the degree and then get on to the business of paying off debt and making whatever bucks there are to be made in this dicey world.

I think your characterization of VU's social and political center of gravity is accurate. Those who fear that they'll wake up to find Valpo a stereotypically "woke" institution need to get out a bit and see the rest of the higher ed world. While I understand those who would like to see a higher share of Lutheran students enrolling, I don't think they need worry that VU will try to imitate Oberlin or Grinnell.

What VU has long needed, and which I believe has changed for the better since my undergraduate years (77-81), is enough room for difference so that students who fall outside of that middle-to-right mainstream nevertheless have a place on the campus. And if these folks feel welcomed there, then they, too, become potential donors down the line.

[crusader05]

I think one other thing that has effected Valpo is the advancement of the surrounding community. There's literally nothing to bring people to GreenCastle outside of the university but it also means less money goes a longer way and you're not getting priced out of the community. As Valpo and surrounding areas have built up I can imagine that a professors salary starts to look meager. I also remember Heckler saying before he left that Valpo has a big gap of professors who are nearing retirement vs those that are starting off on the campus which can create pay disparities on campus as there is less money to hire new even as those who have been there longer and in less lean times have accumulated higher salaries

[vu84v2]

For sure, the rise of the downtown really does make Valpo both a lot nicer and also more expensive. Yeah, I bet the compensation issue is tricky for youngish staff or faculty, just since the starting costs of living in Valpo have risen so much -- but the salaries are flat (or decreased due to cuts) and the odds of being able to use the tuition remission/exchange seems dim. Historically, one of the perks of working for a university was the free tution for staff kids and that could go a long way in keeping people content even thru flat or reduced salaries, but the way things are going, the tuition benefit is kind of dicey too... Let's say your're a staff member making $35K or one of the young profs starting at the $50K base.... If you've got a 2 yr old, you have to be wondering whether you can save enough to be able to send your own kids to college elsewhere down the road, or if Valpo will even exist for them to attend in 16 years? So staff recruitment and retention is definitely a pickle. In the 90s, ppl could probably buy a house for pretty affordable and buying power was strong enough you could imagine settling in for the long haul to try to work towards long-term job security and contribute to the school. These days, you'll easily pay $1500 a month to rent a 3bd apt in Valpo, pay $1000 a month per kid in daycare, and who knows whether the uni will cut you in a year or two or exist in ten? I suppose there's always driving Uber and Instacart to try to keep up with inflation. Some Valpo students and employees do that, or drive for Amazon.

OK, let me offer some perspective here:

1. New professors in liberal arts might be making $50K to $60K, but new professors (i.e., freshly minted PhDs) in engineering, business, health sciences, etc. make a lot more (for the business disciplines, starting pay is probably around $85K to $100K). You cannot get a PhD for less than that in those disciplines (and frankly that is on the low end of national pay scales) and you must have a certain percentage of your classes taught by PhDs in each discipline to maintain accreditation. Some may not like these differences in pay, but there are far more liberal arts PhDs than there are existing and available jobs. On the other hand, there are shortages of PhDs in some fields (e.g., nursing, accounting, some engineering fields).
2. I strongly doubt Valpo (or most other private universities) would drop the tuition benefit to save money. Why? Because the value offered is far greater than the marginal cost of the benefit.

[David81]

VU has long had salary issues for faculty and staff. And the evolution of Valparaiso (the community), from an edge-of-the-cornfields small town to an edge-of-Chicagoland suburban city, does indeed mean that a modest, entry level academic salary can pose real challenge for building a life.

Back when I was a Torch academic affairs editor during the late 70s/early 80s, I reported on a faculty salary survey of peer institutions that highlighted the comparatively low pay for VU professors at every seniority level. Let's just say that it was a surprise, as an undergraduate newspaper scribe, to get a healthy sprinkling of thank yous from faculty who appreciated the issue being raised in the student newspaper.

[valpo95]

Saw this article yesterday (1/25) about VU offering buyouts to faculty and staff.

https://www.nwitimes.com/news/education/valparaiso-university-offers-buyouts-to-longtime-faculty-staff/article_b836ca5d-0277-579c-84a0-288e8ac5976e.html

[crusader05]

honestly not sure why they didn't do that first.