Transfers

[Fightingscot82]

Re: Transfers

Actually, I wasn't even thinking about the money as much as the size and academic mission of the school. Assuming they are able to survive, the PAC with schools like BETHANY, GROVE CITY, THIEL, W&J, and WAYNESBURG seems like a good fit with similar athletic and academic missions. Or they can struggle to compete with state funded or heavily endowed private schools that simply have more $$$ to throw away and likely will for the foreseeable future.

Size and academic mission have very little to do with classification. Its if and to what degree the school wants to fund athletic scholarships (the exception being the Ivy League). Cal could go D1 if they had a plan to fund at D1 levels. They could also go D3 if they wanted to quit doing the work to raise athletic scholarship money. Most people assume D3 is small private liberal arts. But its also big research schools like MIT, Johns Hopkins, and Carnegie Mellon. Penn State Behrend has 5,000 students and more closely resembles the 15th PASSHE school than a private liberal arts college but they're D3. NYU has 25,000 students but they're D3.

[boatcapt]

Re: Transfers

FYI financial info on athletics: From article below:
Athletics consists largely of fixed costs.
D2 school of 1000 students without football has athletic costs of $2500 per student.
With football the same school has costs of $5000 per student.
https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2015...ollege-sports/

I'm a little skeptical about how they came up with these numbers and more importantly, what would and would not go away if a school dropped football. Seems like numbers like this (as with the often quoted $16M a year price of starting a football program) almost never tell you exactly what is included (and not included) in the $2500 AND $5000 figures. I would assume that a portion of the delta between with and without football includes the care and upkeep of the stadium. Even if a DII that had football decided to give it up, those costs are not going to just go away. School is still going to be on the hook for paying for it every year weather it is used or not.

In these times when so many colleges and universities are having financial problems, athletics and football in particular have become the boogieman that the academic side of the house can place all the blame on while deflecting any need for change on their side. Budget a little tight? Wouldn't be if we could just get rid of that dam football team that is sucking us dry. Enrolment down and the school is facing really hard choices about cutting majors (and academic staff) in majors with 10 graduates per year? If we could just get rid of all the costs associated with athletics, we would be FINE.

[boatcapt]

Re: Transfers

Size and academic mission have very little to do with classification. Its if and to what degree the school wants to fund athletic scholarships (the exception being the Ivy League). Cal could go D1 if they had a plan to fund at D1 levels. They could also go D3 if they wanted to quit doing the work to raise athletic scholarship money. Most people assume D3 is small private liberal arts. But its also big research schools like MIT, Johns Hopkins, and Carnegie Mellon. Penn State Behrend has 5,000 students and more closely resembles the 15th PASSHE school than a private liberal arts college but they're D3. NYU has 25,000 students but they're D3.

Doesn't the D1 Pioneer League limit members to zero football schollys?

[boatcapt]

Re: Transfers

The schools at risk of closing all look like WJU: ~1,000 students, private, small endowment (tuition dependent), and a high discount rate. Its like a small time car dealership trying to survive with the low-price volume dealers (West Liberty and WVU) by offering bigger sales. The margin is so slim that a down year will mean cuts if you don't have the reserves (WJU doesn't). String a few years together and its catastrophic.

Good analogy. To survive in an area were "low-price volume" universities like WLU and WVU are, small privates like WU need to be nimble, quick to respond to customer wants and ripped to the bone. Everything they do, or don't do, or change needs to be done with a laser focus on what it will do to enrolment and ultimately the bottom line of the college. Unfortunantly, colleges (and not JUST WU!!) are not filled with leaders who are nimble or quick to respond to customer needs.

I'm sure it will get roundly booed, but what WU really needs is a highly successful business person who has experience taking over failed companies and returning them to success. Of course, that is probably the only thing that could unite the academic and athletic sides of the house...their universal hatred for an "outsider" coming in who doesn't know "how" colleges are supposed to be run!!

[Columbuseer]

Re: Transfers

FYI
Another view of d2 athletic expenses courtesy of ncaa.
This is a statistical study that is based on expense reports.
Their study indicates that schools with football spend about $1m more per year than schools without football.
http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/...etics-expenses

[Columbuseer]

Re: Transfers

Actually, I wasn't even thinking about the money as much as the size and academic mission of the school. Assuming they are able to survive, the PAC with schools like BETHANY, GROVE CITY, THIEL, W&J, and WAYNESBURG seems like a good fit with similar athletic and academic missions. Or they can struggle to compete with state funded or heavily endowed private schools that simply have more $$$ to throw away and likely will for the foreseeable future.

Good points. The $ for leading edge academic programs have to come from somewhere. In d3 no scholarships reduce tuition discounts and expands pool of athletic skill for students who want to continue to play sports while paying $50k per year For school. In d3 the tail (sports) is not wagging the dog as in d1.

[boatcapt]

Re: Transfers

FYI
Another view of d2 athletic expenses courtesy of ncaa.
This is a statistical study that is based on expense reports.
Their study indicates that schools with football spend about $1m more per year than schools without football.
http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/...etics-expenses

Never discussed in the revenue generation part of this discussion is the tuition $'s that are brought into the college by the enrolled athletes. For every DII team that give schollys, there are players that receive them and those that don't. The players that don't receive athletic schollys pay the full tuition out of their own pockets (or via other schollys they may get). When you do away with a sport, the revenue that comes from these non-scholly players also goes away. Also worth noting, in many states (most?) athletic scholarships are funded by private donations and do not come from the colleges general revenue pot of money. So if the team decides NOT to give a scholly, that revenue does not stay with the school because it wasn't theirs in the first place. In the case of women's soccer at UNCP, the tuition and R&B cost of cutting the program and the 13 players in it will be between $197K to $249K every year.

[CALUPA69]

Re: Transfers

Size and academic mission have very little to do with classification. Its if and to what degree the school wants to fund athletic scholarships (the exception being the Ivy League). Cal could go D1 if they had a plan to fund at D1 levels. They could also go D3 if they wanted to quit doing the work to raise athletic scholarship money. Most people assume D3 is small private liberal arts. But its also big research schools like MIT, Johns Hopkins, and Carnegie Mellon. Penn State Behrend has 5,000 students and more closely resembles the 15th PASSHE school than a private liberal arts college but they're D3. NYU has 25,000 students but they're D3.

And yet if you look at the 9 members of the PAC-BETHANY, CHATHAM, GENEVA, GROVE CITY, ST VINCENT'S, THIEL, W&J, WESTMINSTER, WAYNESBURG-all present a classic small college image, range in enrollment from 1030-2500 and as far as I know are reasonably stable financially. All manner of colleges have different reasons for choosing their level but if they are able to find a spot that fits with their athletic and academic aims, like say SHEPHERD, it benefits that institution to go there. An awful lot don't, and it is usually to their detriment.

[Columbuseer]

Re: Transfers

Never discussed in the revenue generation part of this discussion is the tuition $'s that are brought into the college by the enrolled athletes. For every DII team that give schollys, there are players that receive them and those that don't. The players that don't receive athletic schollys pay the full tuition out of their own pockets (or via other schollys they may get). When you do away with a sport, the revenue that comes from these non-scholly players also goes away. Also worth noting, in many states (most?) athletic scholarships are funded by private donations and do not come from the colleges general revenue pot of money. So if the team decides NOT to give a scholly, that revenue does not stay with the school because it wasn't theirs in the first place. In the case of women's soccer at UNCP, the tuition and R&B cost of cutting the program and the 13 players in it will be between $197K to $249K every year.

Scholarships are funded through donation to a Foundation like mountaineer athletic club for tax purposes. Generally donor relinquishes control at that point for us non Billionaires.
So foundation for school can decide its use. School loses tuition $ only if athlete was only attending to play sports and can get a scholarship somewhere else. This is more of a d1 attitude toward education and not very successful for d1 or d2 transfers given how few land at other schools.

[Columbuseer]

Re: Transfers

And yet if you look at the 9 members of the PAC-BETHANY, CHATHAM, GENEVA, GROVE CITY, ST VINCENT'S, THIEL, W&J, WESTMINSTER, WAYNESBURG-all present a classic small college image, range in enrollment from 1030-2500 and as far as I know are reasonably stable financially. All manner of colleges have different reasons for choosing their level but if they are able to find a spot that fits with their athletic and academic aims, like say SHEPHERD, it benefits that institution to go there. An awful lot don't, and it is usually to their detriment.

[Fightingscot82]

Re: Transfers

And yet if you look at the 9 members of the PAC-BETHANY, CHATHAM, GENEVA, GROVE CITY, ST VINCENT'S, THIEL, W&J, WESTMINSTER, WAYNESBURG-all present a classic small college image, range in enrollment from 1030-2500 and as far as I know are reasonably stable financially. All manner of colleges have different reasons for choosing their level but if they are able to find a spot that fits with their athletic and academic aims, like say SHEPHERD, it benefits that institution to go there. An awful lot don't, and it is usually to their detriment.

They put up a good front.

Bethany has about 600 students and if you go there you see that they're quickly running out of cash. That campus looks TIRED. Thiel has lost tons of enrollment and is in trouble. Westminster too. St Vincent is discounting the heck out of tuition. Waynesburg was very strategic and has grown by developing grad programs. I'd say the only truly safe and stable in that mix are W&J and Grove City. Big endowments and the most established products. Geneva has done alright trying to be a more faith-centered Grove City Lite.

[Columbuseer]

Re: Transfers

Endowments
I thought 42m was good for I compared it to wju. It is not.

Bethany 42m
West minister 46m - in financial trouble in 2018. Courts involved
Grove city 126m
W and j 136m

[CALUPA69]

Re: Transfers

They put up a good front.

Bethany has about 600 students and if you go there you see that they're quickly running out of cash. That campus looks TIRED. Thiel has lost tons of enrollment and is in trouble. Westminster too. St Vincent is discounting the heck out of tuition. Waynesburg was very strategic and has grown by developing grad programs. I'd say the only truly safe and stable in that mix are W&J and Grove City. Big endowments and the most established products. Geneva has done alright trying to be a more faith-centered Grove City Lite.

OR the ALLEGHENY MOUNTAIN COLLEGIATE CONFERENCE with 10 members but much more travel. Every option has pluses and minuses and may not be ideal. But continuing as they have seems the least viable option IF they even decide to continue the fight, which I for one will take a wild guess and say that WJU/WU will not.

[boatcapt]

Re: Transfers

I believe WU is in kind of a unique'ish situation in that THEY don't own any of the buildings or facilities, the Catholic church does, so there aren't really any (many?) assets to sell should they decide to close. I also haven't seen any documents were the size of the debt that is causing the financial exegency is disclosed...or in fact, exactly WHAT was the trigger for the exegency. I mean, exegencies come in many types...If I own a business and I have a short term cash flow problem that makes me unable to pay my employees for the week, that is an exegency even though my company may be worth millions of dollars. Conversly, I could own a business worth $100K but have a $500K loan due in a year which is creating my exegency. Is WU's exegency cash flow (they have X salary due and only Y tuition income), is it debt (they have X million dollars in debt payments but only Y in income), or is it something else?

I would add that if WU want's to have any hope of keeping their doors open, their tuition and R&B needs to be below that of any private in the area. They have perminently hurt their "brand" and any students that would have chosen them simply for WHO they were even if their tuition wasn't the lowest among area privates are gone. They need to generate some sort of positive publicity...a 5% tuition reduction making them "The lowest cost Private University education in the Ohio Valley area" would at least give them something positive to talk about.

[timbertopper]

Re: Transfers

They put up a good front.

Bethany has about 600 students and if you go there you see that they're quickly running out of cash. That campus looks TIRED. Thiel has lost tons of enrollment and is in trouble. Westminster too. St Vincent is discounting the heck out of tuition. Waynesburg was very strategic and has grown by developing grad programs. I'd say the only truly safe and stable in that mix are W&J and Grove City. Big endowments and the most established products. Geneva has done alright trying to be a more faith-centered Grove City Lite.

Bethany's enrollment has plummeted by nearly 50 percent since my son graduated from there 11 years ago. As a result, they are dealing with major financial issues that clearly threaten the future of the institution. Would hate to see that happen. In all my years, I've never met a Bethany graduate of any age who had anything negative to say about their experience at the school. I know my son feels the same way. Hope they can figure it out but the numbers don't look good. Almost seems like there is no place for small liberal arts colleges in today's world.