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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 (00:00.946)
It is Monday, May twenty fifth, twenty twenty six. It is it is Memorial Day, twenty twenty six. And to start off today's podcast, you know, I I do think of the colonial soldiers at Concord and those at Gettysburg, American soldiers charging across French French and German battlefields in World War One. I often marvel at those riding in the Higgins landing er landing craft.
Surging towards the Normandy beaches on D Day in nineteen forty four, and those who fought in the bitter cold and mountainous terrains of Korea. I have a late cousin who served in Vietnam. And the soldiers like him and sailors who battled in Huei, the Asian Pacific, Iraq, and many, many more places. I was in the army as a reservist shortly after college. I took my Bachelor of Science in the Medical Laboratory Sciences, found an army recruiting station, and started out.
As a first lieutenant, believe it or not, in a MASH unit, just like the TV show. I was scared. I was scared when our unit did their summer training at the height of the Cold War, but I was never, never in active combat combat. And and while I can't imagine, what I cannot imagine is the courage of those that were. While I have read much about past military conflicts.
I often wonder if I could have faced mortal danger as those who came before me and those who came after me. So on this day dedicated to those who gave their last full measure of devotion, their last full measure of devotion to this country, I remember them on this day and many, many, many other days. To the show
Layoffs and cutbacks will continue to be lots and lots. Baldwin Wallace announces another round of program and budget cuts, 28 undergraduate majors and minors, as well as seven graduate programs. Marco Preya had the story on May 18th in the Cleveland Science. As always, the links will be in the show notes. Ben Inglesby had more on the story at Higher Education Dive on May 20th. He added that they're cutting 10 faculty positions or about 2.5% of the full-time workforce.
Gary D Stocker (02:26.112)
this is from the mess message from President Lee Fisher at Baldwin Wallace. The goal, the president the president said, Mr. Fisher said, Dr. Fisher probably, is to create more capacity to invest in programs where student interest is growing, workforce demand is strong, and Baldwin Wallace can build distinctive, I don't know what that means, distinctive excellence. And I did not put this in college drivel, but doesn't
Doesn't this fall into the category of a day late, dollar short? At what point did they note? Were they concerned that they weren't offering what the market wanted? And the finances are not strong at Baldwin Wallace. For example, they've lost more than 50 million in adjusted net income from 2020 to 2024. And for some reason, and this is always a concern, their 2025 data has not posted.
And I'll include the new College Riability Inspection Report link for Baldwin Wallace and talk more about that as I will each and every week so you can see for yourself and dig deep for yourself the financial and outcomes at Baldwin Wallace in a new format that we just developed here at College Riability. Sumpson College in Iowa. We had them on the College Financial Health Show about a week or two ago. They are continuing two sports programs and eliminating six positions.
And when we did that, when we had them on the show, Matt made a point to show to note to note that Simpson College had some issues with it with their restricted endowment. And I just noticed, I think it was on LinkedIn, they have a new CFO that was announced in the past few days. Good luck. Boulders Naropa University announced the significant faculty layoffs and amid a budget crisis. and there's details on this. I'll have the story. Olivia Doak had the story at prairie mountainmedia.com.
Also at the Boulder Daily Camera on May 21st. This just a continuing pattern. You know, the links will be in the show notes. You can dig deep as you want. Cleveland State projects tuition revenue shortfall as Kent State adopts a smaller budget. Joe Scouso had the show story at Crane's Business on May 21st. Again, details follow. Or University of Oregon faces a 65 million budget gap as out-of-state enrollment drops. Taton Torgremson had the story at KEZITV.
Gary D Stocker (04:48.084)
ABC network on May 18th. And Mike Nietzel had a story in Forbes about flagships. University of Devont, University of Vermont facing a 12 million budget shift short.
Gary D Stocker (05:08.792)
The University of Mont is facing a $12 million budget deficit brought about by a drop in enrollment. University of Maryland, a 10% cut in state support, would require the university to free hiring. There's more details. The University of Wyoming, $15 million in deficit. And on and on and on these stories go. Declining industry. Declining industry. I know of no one stating otherwise. Page two. How about?
A spin story. I haven't done those for a little while, I don't think, although I try and incorporate spin each week into the show. this is from Dr. Jamie Caridi, who is the president of Bethany College, the West Virginia version. And he starts off, dear alumni friends. In his intro, he says, Bethany College, again the West Virginia version. Bethany College is fiscally and academic stronger, academically stronger than it was five years ago.
I am guessing the good president has his own definition of stronger today, because I gotta tell you, I'm gonna beg to differ. Again, I'm gonna have a college viability inspection report on Bethany College, West Virginia. Six of the nine flags we have are red. That ain't good. They are lowlighted by a four-year graduation rate. Write this down at Bethany College, who he's the president says is academically stronger today than it was five years ago.
Their four-year graduation rate is averaging, averaging around 30, that's 30% in the past five years. Let me do the math for you. So at Bethany College, last five years, for every 100 students, only about 30 graduated in four years. For every 1,000 students, only about 300 graduated. That means 700 do not. And I understand some of these students went to other colleges and graduated there. It's the comparisons that matter. It's the trends that matter that like I'll talk about.
Later on in the podcast, draw your own conclusions. I'll include the college inspection report, college viability inspection report in the note. And and you know the data for Bethany, the UNAP is a negative has been negative for each of the past five years. Matt Hendrix had that. It was featured in the Forbes College Financial Grades this week. Adjusted net income margin down eight million. Enrollments up about 70 students, student or about 70 students, and student fees are up about five million over the last five years.
Gary D Stocker (07:32.824)
Total operating revenue is effectively flat, and the endowment is flat of fifty two million dollars.
From six 2016 to 2025, it's up 23%. And that's bad. That's really bad. The peer group is up 46%. And the median for private colleges from 2016 to 2025 is up 70%. Well, it's 23% at Bethany College. Easy analysis. This college is falling behind the market. And and the reaction cutting some majors, lots of days late, probably too late.
Probably not going to dent their ability to operate the college in the black anytime soon. Page three. I just mentioned the financial report from Forbes. Forbes comes out each year. It's for private colleges. And this year it was 900 some odd colleges. Matt Schiffrin does the story year in and year out. And to quote from Matt's story, this was on May 22nd, I'll leave the link, but it's behind a Forbes paywall. Of the 928 private colleges with 500 or more students analyzed by Forbes.
More than twenty-five percent received our lowest grade of D. They don't give F's. Our lowest grade of D, the worst performance since we began assessing financial health in 2013. Now part of the Forbes math comes from my my buddy, friend, and college financial health partner, Matt Hendrix.
Through the show and Matt's other efforts, the good folks at Forbes approached him as they prepared this 2026 version of college financial grades, and they ended up using Matt's something called UNAP. And I'll let you I'll define that another day. And the the measure that effectively measures available cash. That's a gross analogy, but that's what that'll hold for today. And Forbes is making that 15, 15% of the financial factors considered. Congratulations to Matt Hendrix. Excellent work, and Matt does some really phenomenal work.
Gary D Stocker (09:28.942)
With his college financial compass and with his advanced compass as well. And let's move on. The crisis in college accreditation and why it matters. Now, this is a political piece. It's from the National Education Association. You can probably guess what spin they're gonna put on this. And they announced, they note that proposed changes to accreditation would help politicians dictate and censor what's taught in classrooms. Mary Ellen Flannery had the story. Let me read.
From the story. In the story, an NEA National Education Association, senior policy specialist, a gentleman by the name of Samuel Deniets, D-U-N-I-E-T-Z, spins the home inspection analogy, the one we use here so often at college viability. And it's it's unlikely Mr. Dietz took the idea from me, but it's I suppose it's possible. Here's what he said. I'm gonna read from the story. My favorite way to explain accreditation.
Is to compare the process to a home inspection. You've heard that from me, right? Most homeowners are familiar with the way this works. You want to buy a new home, you hire an inspector, they inspect it, and they tell you if the foundation is good, if there's holes in the roof, all sorts of things like that. He goes on to say that independent accrediting agencies work similarly by diving into a program or institutions' finances.
Judging whether they're at risk of suddenly closing and leaving students high and dry, pause from reading the quote. No, they don't.
Wha what is he looking at?
Gary D Stocker (11:06.872)
Goes on to write, the the Miss Flannery goes on to write, to gauge academic standards, accreditors check on graduation and student loan default rates, faculty qualifications, maybe in campus policies for sure, including shared governance and academic freedoms. And again, you've heard my analogy before. It's not nice, but IBU accreditors is not much more than I datters and T crossers. And he follows up with the key to that good job. Goodness gracious.
The key to that good job, the vital independence of accreditors. Just like a home inspector, accreditors are independent, not beholden, good lord, not beholden to the institutions or the government says Denise. First of all, my turn now. First of all, accreditors are independent like home inspectors, only to the extent that they can survive without the fees paid by the colleges. For those of you, few of you who don't know.
creditors make their revenue, drive their revenue, pay salaries and whatnot. From the colleges they credit. Yeah, it reads conflict of interest to me too, for those of you thinking that. Home inspectors at least have to get support from real estate agents and previous customers to be able to continue in business. Yeah, I understand the homeowners pay the inspectors, so the inspectors are going to look at the house critically for the home future homeowners' perspective. That's a big deal.
But no such system or market acceptance exists for accreditors. Mr. Needs, as I said, also references sudden closures and graduation rates, neither, neither of which current accreditors evaluate nor readily publish in a timely manner. How many times, how many times on this show have I noted college closures from whatever source, Anna Maria or Hamtray or others?
Or just severe financial stress. And it's crickets. It's crickets from the accreditors. You know, even in today's podcast, Bethany College is averaging only 30%, averaging, averaging, 30% for your graduation rates. Nothing that I can find from the accreditors. Now they may have published something deep inside their website. There may be private correspondence with Bethany College saying, Hey, what are you doing?
Gary D Stocker (13:30.37)
But the world doesn't know there are students consider that considered Bethany College this past March and April before the May first date and chose Bethany College and probably didn't know that they only graduated thirty out of every one hundred students in four years. And page four.
Gary D Stocker (13:50.626)
I started a LinkedIn post middle part of last week and started with one thousand one hundred and seventy nine colleges can't graduate half their students in four years.
Nearly every one of them is accredited. As I record the podcast on Memorial Day, it got over that post got over 10,000 impressions and much more than 20 comments, and those are pretty good numbers for a tight niche like college viability. I'm not selling toothpaste, I'm not selling clothes, I'm not selling socks and underwear. It's a very tight niche, and 10,000 impressions and 20 comments. We're doing something right. Now, most of those comments were supportive of the indictment.
They were supportive of the of the indictment that I was making, that accreditors, like I said minutes ago, are mostly I dotters and T crossers. They are they are these accreditors in my mind are victims of their own business model. They are dependent on revenue from the colleges they accredited.
Gary D Stocker (14:52.46)
And on the other hand, as Tevier said and Fidder on the roof, there were few acad there were just a few academic types who took issue with me challenging poor graduation rates. That's fine. They used old and worn out accuses about time to graduate, transfers, change majors, financial reasons, whatever. One even called me ill-informed. All right, not the first time, not the last time. Well, right.
This is America, everyone's entitled to their opinions, but they missed the point. They missed the point. You know I'm a data nerd, whether you heard me say it or not. You can get that from the data that I share. I track anywhere from five to ten years of internal measures, of measures that I use. Five to ten years is what I track. It is the trend that matters, boys and girls, gentlemen, ladies. It is the comparisons that matter. Of course there's exceptions.
Thousands and thousands of traditional and non-traditional students have life get in the way. You and I have life getting in the way. And almost certainly those life events certainly impact some colleges more than others. And I know that the four-year graduation rate is defined by students who start at it at one college. And I also know that many go on to graduate elsewhere.
Doesn't matter when you're looking at the trends. Doesn't matter when you look at care comparison one comparing one college to another. Think about it. All things equal, all other things equal. If one college averages, say 30% for your graduation rate, and another averages 55%, which would you choose for yourself, for your children? One of those colleges, the one graduating at 55%, clearly has systems and processes in place to graduate more students than the others.
W again, why don't accreditors cite colleges who can't even graduate half their students? This is a declining market. I don't know of anyone calling higher education a growing market. And to those who want to cite time-worn excuses for the performance of this industry, go for it. Here's what you have to be prepared for. The market will bury you. And you're rationalizing.
Gary D Stocker (17:13.184)
And your inability to adapt, but go for it. So that is a wrap on Memorial Day 2026. If you find a quiet minute today or any day, think about those who gave everything so that industries like higher education and many others could even have the chance to grow and make this country even stronger. When we face challenges in higher education and anywhere else.
The sacrifices of those before us must not have been done in vain. Higher education must meet a challenges must meet their challenges as aggressively as soldiers and sailors and airmen have done before.
At College Riability, I'm Gary Stalker. We'll get together again next Monday.