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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 (00:01.662)
It is Monday, November 3, 2025. Hi, everybody. Gary Stocker back in front of the blue yeti microphone with yet another podcast 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 with data and with details and perspectives offered nowhere else.
Today, layoffs and cutbacks almost as always. How closing a university changes you. This is a post, a story about a college president who just recently locked up their college, closed their college up. was here in St. Louis, Fontbonne University. And some interesting perspectives, and we'll talk about that. Daniel Greenstein has a story on the fragility of small scale. Really well done article. I've got some thoughts on that as well. And then a higher education. Higher education is sleepwalking.
toward obsolescence and AI is target here, artificial intelligence. then finally, colleges face a financial reckoning. You would expect that story to be about a small college in the middle of nowhere. But indeed, it is the University of Chicago. And they call that university exhibit A. College viability is is becoming, it has become higher education's NORAD. This is a show.
That's part of the higher education radar system that warns faculty and staff and students when a financial bomb or financial missile or financial challenge is headed their way. And as always, share the podcast link, share this MP3 file, share the website address with your colleagues, your friends, your family, your neighbors, those in the process of starting to look at colleges for the 2026 start of a school year. Don't be hogging the information.
share it with those who can also get value from from the show. Layoffs and cutbacks. George Washington University faces projected financial loss, and this is in large part associated with international student enrollment drop. Jean Estella had the news on October 29th at thehoya.com and the Hoya is the nickname for the sports program at George Washington University, and they're forecasted to lose 35 million.
Gary D Stocker (02:26.4)
in federal research grants and see a 20 % decline in international students. And as you read the article, it's almost certain that more cuts will follow. I think they have a meeting in December to make those decisions. To Wisconsin we go. E-mails show the University of Wisconsin at Madison to lay off 31 employees, among other cuts. Becky Jacobs at the Cap Times. I didn't see a date on that one. The University of Madison is in the process of laying off 31 employees.
and leaving an additional 156 positions vacant. Schools and colleges have cut back on supplies, travel, and other expenses. These are among the campus-wide budget cuts that the deans and other university leaders have made at the UW-Madison campus. And it's part of the overall retraction of higher education and, again, probably related to the decreasing number of international students.
coming to the United States to study page two. Simmons University out of out of the Boston area. Simmons University sees credit rating slashed to junk. That's not good. By Moody's Faith DiBaggio. Bloomberg had this story on October 28th. Simmons University, a women's college, the story says, has intentionally moderated. Should have had that in the
in the college drivel section. Simmons University has intentionally moderated the number of undergrads it's enrolled for the last four years, said Laura Warwick, who is a spokesperson for the school. By thoughtfully managing the size of each incoming class, Ms. Warwick says, we are able to create a more sustainable tuition model while also investing in financial aid.
that advance student success. Now we're gonna talk about all these with some deep data in a second. And this is one of those colleges where she mentioned student success and they graduate a really high percentage, really high percentage of their students. Congratulations to them. But the strategy has not paid off yet. Moody's ratings slash its credit rating last week to junk and said the school is contending with operating deficits that are likely to last through 2028.
Gary D Stocker (04:50.446)
So to the data we go, the net income margin profit, shh, don't tell anybody we call it profit, the net income margin negative below zero for the past six years down almost 10 % since 2016. The full-time equivalent enrollment standardized measure that we use is down 24 % in that same time period. And the net tuition revenue, how much tuition and fee revenue they collect from students is down 18, that's 1.8%.
Endowment growth, while they have some, is below the 25th percentile. So of the 1,300 some-odd colleges we track in the private college advanced financial compass, Simmons College is below 75 % of them.
The endowment's not bad at $249 million, but they've been drawing it down. They've been above 5%, which is kind of the ballpark target in the past five years. And they're doing a decent job of managing expenses and revenue. Revenue is down 5%, but expenses are down 5%. If you watch the college financial health show with Matt Hendricks and Gary Stocker, you'll find a lot of colleges haven't exhibited the capacity to manage expenses in conjunction with revenue.
Interestingly, at Simmons College, which I understand is close to Fenway Park in Boston, they have 139 employees making greater than $100,000 per year. That's up 73 % since 2016. You know, it's an interesting number, but this is in Boston. It's going to be a high cost of living. I'd have to look at the percentile net, and I didn't. So it's a big number, yes, but it's a high expense area.
And they're graduating above 65 % of their students, other undergrad students in four years at Simmons College in Boston to their credit.
Gary D Stocker (06:46.046)
And again, it doesn't seem to matter.
It doesn't seem to matter if a college is graduating students or not, the financial trauma, the financial challenge, the financial messes they have got themselves into don't appear to be focused on any particular academic accomplishments or not. And you've heard me rant and rave about four-year graduation rates. They're doing something right, lot of something's right at Simmons, but yet their financial situation is precarious for lot of reasons.
Nancy Blattner was the president at Fombaughn University here in St. Louis, about 20 minutes from where I am in West St. Louis County. And they announced their closure in early part of 2024 and finalized that closure earlier this past summer. And for those that follow the show on a regular basis, I gave them credit many times because they did it right. They knew they had to close. They announced it. Their students and faculty and staff and community had plenty of time to adjust.
and find alternative arrangements. So they did that right. Credit to Nancy Blattner and those she worked with on that. And here's a couple of notes from the story. It's kind of a touching story. There are some self-serving parts as well, for sure, but you and I might do the same thing. She says the signs, this is Nancy Blattner, the president of the now closed Fontbonne University. She says the signs that a university is failing are obvious to executive leadership and to board members long before.
long before the trustees make the decision to close the institution. In the weeks and months leading up to the board's vote to close FOPBON, members of the executive team, they work hard. And there's lots of details behind that. I'm not going to read those to you. No doubt. No doubt. She goes on to say for two years prior.
Gary D Stocker (08:38.488)
For two years prior, I had Nancy Blattner had traveled throughout the Midwest to speak with leaders of dozens of institutions in an attempt to find a partner with whom to merge or one that would acquire a bond. She goes on to note she was working as a regular college president during that and trying to balance that. And it was a very difficult challenge. And there are details in the story. I'll have the link, of course, as always in the show notes. And I've shared this story before.
But I know of college presidents that will get solicitations like Fontbonne clearly did when they were in dire straits probably a couple of years ago. But it's so late in the game. Fontbonne waited too long, as do many, many, many, other private colleges and some regional publics, to say, we're not going to make it. I had an interview with Ricardo Aziz, who wrote the book just released, Leading Existential Change in Higher Education.
And he and others have said, start those merger, start those acquisition discussions yesterday. Doesn't mean you're going to commit to it, although you probably should. But don't wait, college leaders listening to this podcast. Don't wait. If you haven't already started the conversation, you're probably too late, but get it started. I can get you some referrals if you want. Drop me a note at gary at college viability dot com. And I understand the.
Any word that gets out to the college is talking about closure, talking about merger, talking about cutbacks. And it can and probably does in almost all cases become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yet when we think about the faculty and staff and students, they deserve to know. They deserve to know that they should or might need to make other arrangements.
I understand the self-fulfilling prophecy, but it's way past time to be transparent, not just say it, but actually be it. Page three, kind of ties in a little bit, the power and promise of higher education. And this is from Daniel Greenstein, who was the chancellor, now the chancellor emeritus for the Pennsylvania public system, public college system. And he wrote this on Halloween last Friday.
Gary D Stocker (11:05.26)
And it talks about scale. And you've heard me talk about that many times on the podcast. And here is what Daniel Greenstein noted in his story. And this was in his own website, DiGreenstein, S-T-E-I-N dot com. The pattern is stark and remarkably consistent across regions.
across Carnegie types and missions below about 2500 students. Now get this next part below 2500 students fragility. Fragility, probably financial fragility becomes structural. That's profound. And I hadn't thought of it that way, but it certainly makes a lot of sense. goes on to add Daniel Greenstein goes on to add small colleges don't fail because they are poorly managed. Well, sometimes.
their reporting management maybe too many times. They fail, he says, because their economics are unforgiving. They're too small, not enough colleges, too many colleges, too many colleges, not enough students. The fixed costs, he notes, are accreditation, compliance, technology, student service, marketing, and much, much more vary only marginally, small amounts with small size. When those costs are spread across only a few hundred students, every unexpected shock
and enrollment dip.
Gary D Stocker (12:34.506)
delayed grant payment, a facilities crisis.
Gary D Stocker (12:43.266)
can turn immediately existential. And so here's what he notes, what scale buys, and he uses the number at roughly 10,000 students, something Daniel Greenstein's as shifts. Operating margins trend positive, primary reserve ratio is double, tuition dependency falls, endowment per student and external funding rise. Scale buys fixed cost absorption.
spreading overhead across more students, revenue diversification, market elasticity, and by that he means larger geographical reach for students, and brand leverage. Selectivity sustains price integrity. So if you can not accept everybody, the heartbreak admissions policy I've talked about before, you can maintain pricing integrity. And I just talked with a reporter this morning, and we were talking about the fact that as Matt Hendricks and I do,
the College Financial Health Show on Tuesday mornings that there are many colleges whose average tuition price per student, average price per student from 2016 through 2024 has gotten lower, actual dollar amounts lower, nominally lower, and many have just a bit above what they were in 2016, which doesn't...
and the data does not take into account inflation so they've really fallen behind. And he says at about 10,000, about 10,000 students resilience compounds because each advantage reinforces the other. Okay, I have to think about that one. What comes next?
Gary D Stocker (14:26.304)
The data point to a painful truth. Size has become destiny. Size has become destiny for much of the private sector. Institutions under 2,500 students operate on the thinnest of margins, and I see that almost daily, and the shortest of runways. The question for boards is no longer whether to change, whether to merge, whether to consolidate, whether to close.
But how quickly?
in the case of mergers or acquisitions or even partnerships with whom. And this just all goes back to the fact that hope, of course, is not a strategy we've heard that many times, know. Daniel Greenstein is yet another source documenting the current and future consolidation of higher education. Closures today and tomorrow and the next day. Mergers.
acquisitions in the coming months and years. Page four, higher education is sleepwalking toward obsolescence and AI, artificial intelligence, won't be the cause, just the accelerant. And this is from Steven Mintz, M-I-N-T-Z, a Substack post. I'll have the link in the show notes on October 21st. And he talks about that
Artificial intelligence, AI, isn't a cheating crisis, C-H-E-A-T, cheating crisis, it's an identity crisis for higher education. He talks about the model, the business model, the academic model. Currently, as he observes it, has lectures that students skip and no one seems to notice. There are assigned readings that no student completes.
Gary D Stocker (16:27.758)
because nothing depends on those readings. There are essays that do not demand serious research or critical thinking. And teaching reduced to content delivery, which is all it is, I'm faculty, I teach college courses. Teaching reduced to content delivery is the one thing that AI automates flawlessly.
He writes also the uncomfortable truth is that AI has revealed the emptiness that increasingly lies at the heart of a college education. And what AI forces us to confront? AI has changed the baseline conditions of knowledge itself. Instead of recording this podcast at 11 a.m. Central Time,
On this Monday morning, I could be teaching myself theoretical physics or aviation history or art history using AI in a manner that no college faculty member has done as efficiently and succinctly as AI can. The ability to fake competence is what I'm talking about. Me, the ability to fake competence at scale
be a physics genius or aviation genius or art history genius, I'd be faking it. But the ability to fake competence at scale now exceeds the university's ability to detect authenticity, talking about cheating. The old education model built on output, diplomas, degrees, certificates, credentials, rather than process learning.
Gary D Stocker (18:22.456)
Cannot survive, Mr. Min says. Cannot survive when simulation through artificial intelligence is effortless. And so as I read this, and I read it a couple of times, the whole article, and again, you'll have an access to the link in the show notes. And I began to wonder, maybe it's not the financial stress. Maybe it's not the financial stress that leads to the consolidation that I've talked about so many times, mergers and closures.
Maybe it is this very artificial intelligence technology that is effectively, as we speak, scooping up today's higher education learning model.
and not even arguably, scooping up today's higher education learning model and dumping it into what will inevitably in time become irrelevance.
Gary D Stocker (19:27.756)
And the wrap is with colleges facing a financial reckoning. And the University of Chicago is exhibit A. This is Sarah Endazo and Heather Gillers on the Wall Street Journal on October 30th. Of course, the show notes will have the link for this. And you might think that this would be a small private college somewhere in the middle of a rural area, but it is a preeminent, highly regarded, highly selective college.
in the middle of Chicago.
And these two reporters write this university, the University of Chicago, is an acute example.
of the financial woes plaguing higher education. Their budgets struggles are in many cases more than a decade in making. So it's probably not as acute as you're right, probably chronic. Their budget struggles are in many cases more than a decade in the making. And like I just said, it's not some far-flung university or some D-list private colleges, their term, not mine. This is The Wall Street Journal. This is not Gary Stocker.
Daniel Greenstein, as I said earlier, is a former chancellor, now the chancellor emeritus of the Pennsylvania public higher education sector, both much higher sources of information than you can get here at College Viability. I may have started it. I may continue to pronounce it, but these are really high-end sources confirming what I talk about so many times. And there are countless others, countless others.
Gary D Stocker (21:05.998)
offering effectively the same assessment. Many, many, many, colleges are in financial trouble. Too many can't even graduate 50 % of their students. And those in trouble almost always offer the same illogical remedy, something along the lines that we will both cut and grow our way out of this mess and it cannot be done in a preponderance of the cases.
I can't tell you when the cataclysm will hit, the catastrophic set of closures will hit. I can't tell you. Nobody can tell you when a college, individual college will close or dozens of colleges will close or hundreds of colleges will close. One of those numbers is going to be accurate, maybe all of them. And the solution is, as I've shared a couple of times today and many, many times in the past, the solution is consolidation.
closures, mergers, maybe partnerships, aggressive partnerships, large scale partnerships, too many colleges, too few students. Since demographics are destiny, the ladder is not going to change. There's always going to be too few students. And as Daniel Greenstein intimated, if your college enrollment is below 2,500, you should have already started to look at partners to help you scale your operations towards something like 10,000.
It almost certainly won't happen with mom and pop mergers. You just can't get to the scale needed with one small college merging with another.
And as I've said many times, we will see something like 10 to 15 or more colleges come together. And I believe in something like a holding company model so that they can keep their school colors and their mascot and much of their identity. Holding company model to get the academic and the non-academic scale that is needed. It will happen.
Gary D Stocker (23:14.6)
It will happen, as I look at my Blue Yeti microphone in front of me.
Hey, as always, thanks for making time to listen to the podcast. Make sure to share the link to your friends, family and neighbors. And until next Monday, I'll be back with another episode of This Week in College Viability. It's Gary Stocker. Thanks again. Talk next week.