However, as frustrating as it may be, the state of the economy is beyond the control of Valparaiso University. But a positive view holds that if the economy becomes much more improved in upcoming years, Valpo should benefit, unless the current frame of thinking about costs of education shifts all perspectives and becomes permanently entrenched in families' considerations about college.
Thanks for sharing. It's certainly interesting data on the public/private tug-of-war for students. Yes, enrollment probably is zero-sum on a regional level in the upper Midwest.
Overall, I'm only partially convinced by the economic argument. Definitely people FEEL like the economy is bad, since I think most the country was traumatized by the job instability of COVID and then the raging inflation of 2021-23. But the reality is that the economy is actually doing really well right now, and average salaries across the country have gone way up over the last few years (granted, less so in Indiana than in other states), so that a lot of people have similar or higher overall cashflow than before; and recent headlines suggest that inflation is back down to the 2-3% range (not good, but not nearly as bad as it was the past two years). Now, who knows if this parallel rise in prices and income is the case for individual families in whether prospective parents were able to navigate the job changing and salary growth opportunities to keep up with or outpace inflation, since of course some probably just experienced instability or their old salaries not going as far at the grocery store. But the national data does show pretty massive overall salary growth, in many states notably higher than price growth, which suggests a lot of people are not actually worse off in the net perspective. So if people are discerning college options with the "bad" economy in mind, that seems more a perception than a wide-scale reality, and we have yet to see what patterns really emerge as the traumatic memories of COVID/inflation continue to fade.
For my part, I still think there's a deeper and more worrying questioning of the value of private higher education itself -- with the fault being partially due to private institutions giving up what made them distinctive from public institutions. So many places like Valpo have pretty blithely stopped investing in the model of a residential university experience with a close-knit learning community, dedicated long-term faculty, and personalized faculty/staff attention students - but throughout the 2010s and 2020s have instead letting efficiency "consultants" relocate the college experience out of human encounters into LMS and retention software. Now that pretty much EVERY university (public or private) has its students basically existing and living in the digital landscape one of one of about 2 or 3 big companies (Blackboard or Canvas or GoogleClassroom), it makes no sense to pay private-school tuition for the same depersonalized experience you could get at at a public uni or community college for much cheaper. I see the article on Indiana public enrollment mostly as an indicator that people are voting with their feet by just going to the public uni's as the difference between a public and private education becomes less and less clear to prospectives. If you were a high school student educated on Blackboard for free in public high school, it has got to seem weird to *start* paying $40K per year to continue getting Blackboard e-notifications. Ivy Tech can give you pdfs and e-assignments and e-feedback in an LMS for a lot cheaper.
The exact reasons above is why the school formerly know as IUPUI split. IUPUI was only meant to be a satellite campus much like IUN and PNW. However, with the regional universities moving to the regional degree model, IE your degree says PWN as opposed to Purdue University, students began flooding into the school that still offered the genuine degree from either institution. IUPUI. Why pay 20k a year to attend Purdue-West Lafayette or IUB when I could spend <10k to attend IUPUI, get better networking inside of Indy, and get a degree that says Purdue or IU, and effectively get the exact same degree as main campus. Heck, if you like sports, no worries! IUPUI sponsors a bus service to Purdue and IU for gameday. When asking peers at this institution why they chose IUPUI as opposed to Purdue and IU. The answers were a healthy mix of, I dont want to pay for IU or Purdue, I live in the Indy area, or Indy is a better environment for career advancement. IUPUI leaned into this designation up until the got "too big for their own good" and Purdue got enraged that they were seeing declines in their Flagship degrees, meanwhile IUPUI was seeing a boost in those same paths.(The above came directly from a former staff member at IUPUI).
Regional universities are going to have to downsize, that much is true, but they also need to find a focus on what makes them better than public schools. As VUIndiana and Pal have mentioned before, VU prides itself on small class sizes and personal teacher-student relationships. In my opinion, that is a great start on a marketing campaign.
As VUIndiana and Pal have mentioned before, VU prides itself on small class sizes and personal teacher-student relationships. In my opinion, that is a great start on a marketing campaign.
Does VU pride itself on these things, though? Definitely faculty and students consider these things to be positive value and an important distinguisher, but I am not at all convinced that the administration does. For the last ten years, all they've done is push various e-learning platforms, bring in endless rounds of consultants to pitch new efficiency and ROI models at us, impose higher teaching loads and course caps, and generally tell people to suck it up and make students do with less. When faculty have expressed concerns about the undermining of the Valpo experience and that there's a risk of the university losing what it used to be, Padilla's and CFO-types' general response has been 'too bad, so sad, sorry you feel that way.' Insofar as the various deanlings do acknowledge the enormous strain they're putting the student-facing staff and faculty under, the recommendation is generally, 'well, just do less, assign less, give less feedback, cut assignments, grade quickly for complete/non-complete, streamline and mass produce what you can, cancel some classes if you need to.' (In their defense, the mid-tier administrator I have in mind was actually saying this in a kind of pro-employee sympathetic acknowledgement to rising workloads across campus, giving people grace to cut corners where they could to survive - but I still can't help but see it as a failure on their part that they keep putting employees in a position of giving ever thinner and crappier experience to students).
So ya, I think a lot of faculty and staff do feel very strongly that small class sizes and personal teacher-student relationships make the small private uni experience qualitatively different than a large public school experience. But I'd feel better about this as a potential marketing campaign if I thought the people running the university at various mid- and upper-levels of administration still believed it.
VU seems to have a serious issue of disconnect between staff and the upper echelon. I understand that a college is primarily a buisness, but your business model is education. Why would you not want to give students a quality education. Surely creating successful, productive, members of society is enough of an ROI for a university. If this wasnt an effective model. Universities wouldnt even exist. The model should be
student pays->student gets quality education-> student becomes successful-> student recommends university to future generations and potentially makes donations to "give back"
I understand the school is on hard times, and that difficult decisions need to be made, but lowering the standard of education is exactly what got the school into this mess with the law school. I understand Padilla has big aspirations. A new CONHP being the forefront, but what good is a new building when you dont have students who are given the proper time to develop their skills. "No Child Left Behind" shouldn't even exist in the first place. Let alone extend to the realm of higher education.
This disconnect between admins and staff is also a major concern. At some point(albeit this should have happened a lot sooner). The leaders of faculty senate, the admins, CFOs, and any other party need to sit down, take a weekend, and discuss the future of the institution. As displayed by staff members, there is a major clash between the faculty, their values and beliefs and the values and beliefs of the admins. The time is long overdue for there to be serious discussions between these parties rather than town hall meetings.
but lowering the standard of education is exactly what got the school into this mess with the law school.
That certainly is not what caused the Law School's demise. Yes, ultimately the school lowered its standards to draw students, but if they hadn't they would have closed years earlier. The problem was a dramatic decline in students seeking a law degree and competing with Notre Dame, Indiana, Purdue, Northwestern and the University of Chicago, all within a short drive of Valpo's campus, for a diminished number of students, the handwriting was clearly on the wall.
Does VU pride itself on these things, though?
Valpo puts out loads of videos on these issues and unique opportunities and makes them a focal point in recruitment:
Take a look here:
Per ValpoPal's point above re state U enrollments, yes, indeed, and this appears to be a national trend.
I think this is where we have more evidence of the FAFSA impact on private universities with student bodies heavily dependent upon financial aid based at least in part on need.
I was just at a conference at Michigan State University, and they have just brought in a massive first-year class.
I really admire all of the passion for old VU in this thread. I just wish all of this passion could be transformed into students sharing their unique experiences and talents when they graduate. I also wish VU had a network of alumni to call on for the capital improvements needed to right the ship, similar to many schools boosters that come up with millions to change coaches.
Has anyone heard any GOOD news from the university recently?
Of note to the Forum, the 2024 VU audit results are available, with results through June 30, 2024. The report is dated October 28, 2024 and can be obtained here:
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/350868125
(Or, google ProPublica and search for the Lutheran University Association.)
Some notes of interest:
- From p.4, the Total Assets of VU in 2024 declined to $602.9M from $612.5M in 2023. The Liabilities increased to $167.4M from $162.8M. The total net assets (including new donations to the endowment, and payoffs from the endowment) declined to $435.4M from $449.6M.
- From p.5, the operating revenues were down about $1M in total $110.4M in 2024 from $111.4M in 2023. Net tuition and fees was $45.9M in 2024, a slight decline from $46.7M in 2023. The endowment payouts in both years were about $24M. Salaries and benefits increased to $63.1M from $60.2M.
- In addition, net interest expenses were $5.3M compared to $4.7M in 2023. All in, the decline in net assets was $14.2M for 2024, which is slightly less than the decline of $17.2M in 2023. (see end of p.6).
Going a bit deeper, on the debt side, two things jumped out to me:
- On p.22 (note 7), VU has increased the notes and bonds payable to $104.7M from $102.6M. (They paid off some of their existing loans on relatively recently constructed buildings, yet added a new 5-year term borrowing note of $5M, using the proceeds $5M to pay off some of the line of credit.) This $5M is at an interest rate of 7.54% as of 6/24.
- In addition, there is another $5M borrowed on a line of credit at 7.19%, $15M on a line of credit at 6.74%, and $7M on a line of credit at 6.34%. These lines of credit have expiration dates from 12/24 though 1/26 – they appear to be at floating rates (SOFR plus 100 to 175 basis points). This puts VU’s line of credit borrowings at $27M.
All that to say, VU has been running in the red again in fiscal 2024. They also do not have substantial new borrowing capacity – the loans and lines of credit together are $131.7M, up from $123.6 in 2023.
We never should have let these corporate sharks into higher ed. They convinced the 'stakeholders' that 'eDucAtION iS BuSineSS' and then proceeded to drive previously solid institutions into the ground, paying them and their friends high administrator salaries and consultant fees while impoverishing schools under terrible debt financing loads. I wish the big whigs signing these deals would just to the casino directly to get this itch scratched, instead of pretending to be educational professionals.
VUIndiana - I really don't know who you are referring to when you say "corporate sharks". As far as "Education is Business", a university like any business needs to have revenues that meet expenses. if they don't, you need to make hare decisions on where to cut expenses unless there are clear new revenue opportunities. I agree with you that excessive debt, perhaps to meet someone's personal ambitions to build monuments to hiim- or herself is bad. Debt has a place, but you need to always be able to service your debt with minimal risk.
I guess my question would be how much of this money is from the Heckler 5k enrollment scam?
VUIndiana - I really don't know who you are referring to when you say "corporate sharks". As far as "Education is Business", a university like any business needs to have revenues that meet expenses. if they don't, you need to make hare decisions on where to cut expenses unless there are clear new revenue opportunities. I agree with you that excessive debt, perhaps to meet someone's personal ambitions to build monuments to hiim- or herself is bad. Debt has a place, but you need to always be able to service your debt with minimal risk.
David Phelps, Susan Scroggins, and that entire generation of financial "leadership" that pursued everything leverage-wise and understood nothing school/enrollment-wise.
Rez, I think the 5,000 student enrollment "Heckler scam" was worse. His 2013 a strategic plan called for 6,000 students. Then they borrowed to build facilities for that enrollment. Didn't anyone research the enrollment cliff back then? The kids were already born.
