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Welcome to the podcast. We call it TWICV. It is our effort to provide a fast-paced, entertaining, and alternative voice to the propaganda and hype flowing out of colleges in America today.
This week in College Viability is a proud affilate of The EdUP Experience podcast network.
Gary D Stocker (00:01.358)
It is Monday, November 17th, 2025. Hi everybody, Gary Stocker back in front of the blue yeti microphone with yet another episode of This Week in College Viability News and Commentary. And of course, this is the podcast that talks about the financial health and viability of public and private colleges. And we use data and we use details and we use perspectives offered nowhere else. And where are we headed?
this week before Thanksgiving 2025. It wouldn't be a show without cutbacks and layoffs. We had a closure announcement last week, but the college was so small it didn't really want big headlines. Wittenberg University in Ohio is on probation. I'll have the data for you. Long time in coming. The Unica College president moves to get his college financially sound. And it looks like he was chased out of town because of it. And then students at Mary Students' Protest
at Mary Baldwin University in Virginia because of cuts to minors. And I have a college president who says, after the fact, after the fact, we want, we always wanted to be smaller anyway. And then why free community college is missing the mark in Massachusetts and I will offer elsewhere. And of course, much, much more. And please, as always, don't be a hog. Don't be selfish. Make sure to share the podcast link with your higher education colleagues, friends, family, neighbors, and others.
You shouldn't be the only one getting the latest information, updates and perspective on this challenging and troubled higher education industry. Layoffs, cutbacks and closures. Sterling College in Vermont in Vermont announced closure in the spring of 2026. Only 100 students at Sterling College. Still yet another college not being able to make it financially. We will see more, trust me. New Jersey College, Rider University.
is in a financial crisis and will lay off 40 professors and cut everyone's pay. Looks like they're cutting off, laying off, excuse me, 40 full-time faculty members and slashing salaries, I think, across the board by 14%. The university says it is making urgent and severe choices. And of course, I always ask, why are you waiting until now? And they were placed on probation by their creditor, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
Gary D Stocker (02:23.342)
To the data, I can go to the data. The net income margin is below zero for the last nine years. It's down 18 % in 2024. The unrestricted net assets, the value of the college is down 131%. Net tuition revenue, NTR down almost 30%. Enrollment down 19%. Operating revenues down 20 % yet expenses are only down 8%.
They're on probation. What does that mean? They've got a couple more years. I'll talk about that in a minute. State, excuse me, Keene State, to lay off staff positions and ask faculty to retire after state cuts. Noah Didrich in the Keene Sentinel had this on November 14th. The college is eliminating about 17 positions. The college was notified in late October by an email from then President Melinda Treadwell. I don't know what happened to her.
And the planned staffing reduction is in response to a series of cuts in the New Jersey and the New Hampshire legislature. It worked out to be about $4 million less for a keen state to operate from. And I have college drivel, college silliness, college drivel for this week. Here's a quote. Write this down. For universities to be successful going forward.
You're going to have to do a better job of serving students. That's where this transformation started. How can we do a better job of serving students? Again, I beg the eternal question. Why now? Why haven't you always been finding a way to do a better job of serving students? Why didn't they look at this 10 years ago, 15 years ago? Onward we go, accreditor places.
Wittenberg University in Ohio on probation, citing ongoing financial problems. Matt Hendricks and I had this college, Wittenberg University on the college financial health show many, many months ago. We could have told you then it wasn't going to be able to survive in the same format that it was operating in. says university employees expected the moves, which does not affect students. And they always have that announcement. How can it not? How can it not affect students? The story comes from the November 12th, date in daily news.
Gary D Stocker (04:44.802)
Eileen McClory and Brooks Burlach had the story. Wittenberg's accreditation status has been changed to accredited on probation due to ongoing financial concerns. The quote from the Higher Learning Commission says, probation is a public sanction, if you can find it, is a public sanction that allows the institution a period of time to resolve the areas of concern. Now they've got two years.
Wittenberg University has two years to submit a plan to get out of the situation, and its status will be reconsidered no later than April of 2027. All right. So no actual results are needed, no improvement in finances, no improvement in graduation rates are needed for the HLC. They just need a plan in almost two years.
I don't need two years to do a plan. I can go to my Gemini AI and get one in five minutes. Yes, it won't be perfect, but it'll be good enough to get started. And this isn't probation. This is something along the lines of let us give you more time.
Gary D Stocker (06:09.4)
Let us give you more time to pay your accreditation fees while you gin up some idealistic, unrealistic plans.
Gary D Stocker (06:26.028)
And to the data we go. Again, the data is so readily available. Net income margin below zero in six of the last eight years. The endowment is flat. It looks like it's one of the lowest growth rates, lowest endowment growth rates for private colleges in the country. It's down 30 million in just the last four years. They have had double digit endowment draws in three of the past four years. They're rating that endowment piggy bank
just to keep the lights on. In those three years, was draws of 16%, 13%, and then 16 % again, typical draws somewhere in the 4 5 % range. The unrestricted net assets, only 30 million, that's the value of the college, I believe, that has been going down. And what appears to be after a building boom of sorts in 2018 to 2020, next to no resources have been spent on the infrastructure, on maintaining infrastructure since
That time frame enrollment is down 32 percent. That tuition revenue down 39 percent. And again, this is a college, they're graduating students, at least in four years. They're hovering that four year graduation rate for undergraduate students is hovering just below 60 percent, which is pretty good. But the six year graduation rate is just mid 60s. There's probably a story there. don't know what that is. Page two.
The president of Utica University in the Northeast steps down amid layoff threats and financial woes. This was on November 7th from Ask Live. Dave Eisenstader had the story. And as I think I posted a social media make on this, as always, let's do the work that reporters should have done and go to the data for Utica University. And of course, as always, the data sources are audited financial statements, the ones that colleges themselves have audited and submitted.
the IRS 990 data and the National Center for Education and its iPads database from 2016 to 2024. Although some of the 2025 data is just now starting to come out at Utica College. Four year graduation rates below 50 percent, six year graduation rates barely, barely above 50 percent. Undergrad enrollment down 20 percent, grad enrollment down 25 percent, net tuition revenue down 8 percent.
Gary D Stocker (08:47.646)
I'm stopping. This is a college in trouble. And none of these really quick data points that I just shared, none of these data points suggest this college is anything close to financially sound. And yet when their college president, Dr. Todd Fannisteel, took action, it appears, my judgment, my perception, it appears that Dr. Fannisteel was run out of town.
Not the first time, almost certainly not the last time. What a business, what an industry. Let's go to Mary Baldwin University. Mary Baldwin University, think it's in Pennsylvania. I to check on that. Mary Baldwin University, Patrick Height and the Staunton News leader on Friday, November 14th. Students protest Mary Baldwin University's decision to discontinue academic minors. Rather cutting all the minors, I believe.
And I think I did a social media post on this as well. And I think the lead on that was caveat emptor. Of course, that is the Latin phrase for a buyer beware, because just like for Rider University, just like for Wittenberg University, the data is there. The data is there to suggest that you really want to be careful going to the Rider universities, to the Wittenberg universities and even to the Mary Baldwin universities are just not financial. It's financially sound.
They're not financially sound, period. But there are other colleges in much better shape. And to the students at Mary Baldwin University, the four-year graduation rate averages below 40 % since 2016. Retention rate is around 60%, which is low. The net income margin is below zero. They're not making any money. It's been below zero in seven of the past nine reported years. The endowment has actually decreased. The endowment is down 8%.
The median private college endowment is up, increased 58 % in the same time period. And the reason for that is, like I said a minute ago, Mary Baldwin University has been drawing down their endowment at a pace faster than almost every other private college in the country. In three of the past nine years,
Gary D Stocker (11:12.95)
It's been an almost unheard of double-digit draws. The revenues have increased faster than expenses. In 2024, that appears to be associated with a massive draw against the endowment. the essence of it is students, families, parents, and others, the data's there. I talk to reporters all the time and it's almost always via Zoom. I bring up Matt Hendricks, Advanced Compass Financial.
the private college advanced campus and show them pictures, show them charts. And I tease them all the time. They don't need me to do the analysis because the lines are going down when they should be going up.
Gary D Stocker (11:57.622)
And on and on it goes, caveat emptor, buyer beware. The first criterion for looking at colleges in 2025 and beyond is look at the financial health of colleges. And for the most part, it's smaller colleges. For the most part, it's non-urban colleges. For the most part, it's private colleges. But there are publics in dire straits, they may not close because of the political pressures, but they're not offering the high quality college education.
that most students deserve and have earned. Drexel universities. First year enrollment plummets by nearly 20%. It was corrected after the fact to read 19.3%. I guess the folks at Drexel didn't like 20. This story comes from Sonia Bondi and Polly Lascazzo on November 14th from thetriangle.org. And Drexel announced that 1,900 some odd students enrolled. This year it was down from 20, almost 2,400 in the previous year and down from 2,800 the year prior to that.
Interestingly, Ms. Basanja and Pali did least some research here for reporters, and they noticed the shift in Drexel's acceptance rate. went down 10 points. I don't know why. It went down from a little over 79 % to not quite 70%. So down almost nine points, give or take.
And the yield rate went down, down to 7.2 % from 8%. And I didn't check, but I don't know if Drexel considers itself highly selective and they want their yield, I'm sorry, they want their acceptance rate to go down. They want their yield rates to go down. I'd have check on that. And so here's what was interesting. In a statement to the university, President Antonio Merlo shared that the decline was anticipated.
The decline was anticipated, he's quoted as saying, this is President Antonio, Antonio Moreau, excuse me, in light of shifting demographic trends and national challenges in international student enrollment. Read that excuse. The university expected a smaller first year class and get this proactively planned, proactively aligned. It's planning and budget to reflect that projection. Let me turn on the sarcasm alert light here. Sarcasm alert, of course.
Gary D Stocker (14:22.54)
Of course, all colleges plan for enrollment decreases before they happen. I should go back and see if Drexel had any springtime predictions on their 2025 enrollment projections, because many colleges will take even minor changes that look good and they'll spin it to look good. And you've heard me talk about that. You heard me talk about that many times. Page three, change the game.
and name of college admissions. David Blobomb on real-clear education had this back on October 30th. And he's going to read from his story. He says, when we refer to the application and acceptance process as college admissions, we set ourselves up to stop short of completing the task.
ensuring students succeed. I if he's been reading my stuff. We should call it success matchmaking. All right, you got some silly names for that kind of stuff. That's fine. The point, he says, of colleges not to get in, the point is to graduate and succeed. Welcome to the club, Mr. Blobom. Students are set up for success at a college when they are vetted by the data, their academic success, financial capacity to succeed there. I added those parts.
So I get it, Mr. Blobaugh is worth my thing. He's entitled to do that. But it got me thinking. It got me thinking about in a little bit more depth about this access versus success. And really what we should, we should not be worrying about the enrollment cliff that we hear so much about the enrollment cliff, but we really should have been focusing for a long time on what has become the graduation valley or the completion valley.
just plummeting to the depths. Access, as I have said so many times, access is not the same as success in higher education. Mr. Blobal is confirming that. And our national focus should be on that completion, that graduation valley, not the enrollment cliff. The enrollment cliff is a done deal. It started 18 years ago, 19 years ago. That's not going to change. Onward we go. Report finds.
Gary D Stocker (16:39.768)
Did the University of California San Diego freshmen are not prepared for college level math or writing classes?
I don't talk about high schools much. Madeline Shannon had this story on November 14th. Looks like it was syndicated at yahoo.com. And she writes that admitting large numbers of unprepared students risks harming those students and straining limited educational resources. All right. We can only help so many students and only when the gaps they need to overcome are within reach. So here's the report. For freshmen at the University of California San Diego.
They did not meet middle school, grade school, middle school, fifth grade, third grade, something like that, proficiency standards, proficiency standards in mathematics, period. It was 30 times worse in 2025 than it was in 2020. And the report goes on to say that in 2024, two out of five students who needed to take remedial math classes also had to take remedial writing classes.
All so nobody's going to fall out of their chair with this kind of story. We know that the education system in general in our country is not nearly as strong as it needs to be. And this is really what I'm referencing when I talk about academically unprepared students. It's clearly the one area that colleges are not culpable for. Colleges are not culpable for high school success.
Yet the higher education focus on access, getting students enrolled effectively ignores the reality that millions and millions of high school students, for whatever reasons, are not getting the education and skills needed to go on to college. And the scope of that discussion is way, way beyond my experience to even start to address, and I have no interest in addressing that, at least today and at least in this one. Page four.
Gary D Stocker (18:48.162)
Michael Horn had a story. He's a senior contributor at Forbes. This was back in June. I don't think I had it back then. And his headline reads, Free Community College is Missing the Mark in Massachusetts. Now, this is the same theme as we've talked about a few times already today. And Mr. Horn, I think it's Mr. writes, Massachusetts is now a couple of years into its experiment in rolling back the clock on college policy and not in a good way.
at a time when higher education policy is shifting to focus on the value students receive from their education, Massachusetts and its relatively new free community college law called Mass Educate is instead focused squarely on access, squarely on access to college. And Mr. Horn writes on that dimension, Commonwealth of Virginia, excuse me, Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
seems to be succeeding. Enrollment roll is 14%, roughly 9,000 plus new students. And the prior year it was almost 9 % increase. But he also writes it's less clear if enrolling students will benefit from their educations. Write this down. Don't fall out of your chairs. Roughly two thirds of these students in Massachusetts don't graduate community college.
two-year community college degrees. Roughly two-thirds of students don't graduate within six years of a two-year education. And I understand, many do it part-time, I understand that part. 66 % don't. So for every 10 that start today, in six years, only 30 some of them, 33 of them will have graduated. What happens to the other?
67 out of every 100.
Gary D Stocker (20:50.766)
And Mr. Horn writes, it's incentivizing the wrong thing. Instead of aiming only for enrollment, how many times have I said that? Instead of aiming only for enrollment, regardless of outcome, a better policy would be, wouldn't just subsidize student attendance, getting them in the door, getting them enrolled with access.
Gary D Stocker (21:14.734)
It would tie student, it would tie state resources to student outcomes. What more can I say? I have been on top of this access versus success for a long time. And for those that argue that access is needed to give students a chance at graduating and success, sure, I agree. It's easy to agree. However, the pendulum,
clearly and demonstrably with the data. The pendulum has clearly and demonstrably swung too far, way too far to access, and not even close to getting even half of college students through to graduation.
Let's do a wrap. had a major news organization, a reporter for that organization reach out to me today about the decrease in international enrollment. That's the story of the day to day it appears in higher education. And by the way, I have regional and industry and national reporters reach out to me regularly for both backgrounds and for quotes in their stories. And one of the questions he asked was, do I have any other insights, numbers and examples to by backing up my thoughts? And he always ends his, his.
interviews with that question. Stories to back up my thoughts on higher education. And here's what I shared. We've already seen two small private college closures in November. And both, I said, represent the types of colleges most significantly impacted by the trickle-down impact, that's bad writing, by the trickle-down impact of federal policy.
and higher education economic realities. As I have shared before, looking at the historical data from audited financial statements, IRS documents, the National Center for Education Statistics, it becomes readily observable, easily apparent which colleges are likely to succumb to the economic reality of too many colleges in the United States and not enough students willing to even pay heavily discounted tuition.
Gary D Stocker (23:29.39)
to go to those colleges. As I shared earlier in the podcast, the chart lines that should be going up are going down. And in many cases, in a big way, and let me be trite, this is not, I am not particularly profound on this. This is not rocket science. The financial and operational data and trends, historical trends are clear. There are hundreds, hundreds.
public and private colleges in dire financial straits and even if they aren't closing, what kind of college education are they providing?
when they are worried and watching their last dollars circle the financial drain. Do I believe in higher education? Yes, I've shared that many times. Yes, yes, yes, for millions of students. I'm one of them. My family is one of them. I've talked about that many times. Yes, it is valuable. But I do not. And the data supports me. I do not believe in higher education for students who effectively, academically, and financially
are unprepared for a college education. Can those same students find careers and livable incomes? Absolutely, but not through an expensive debt-inducing traditional college education. There are many other new and developing resources available to learn skills and trades and have a financially successful career.
I'm going to call it a wrap with that. always, I am grateful for those of you making time to listen to the podcast. If you have some comments, questions, concerns, challenges, drop me a note to gary at collegeviability.com. And I will be back Thanksgiving week next Monday, November 24th. We'll have another podcast episode then. I look forward to talking with you then. Take care.