Wow! That's a merger that equals more than the sum of its parts, I would say. Almost totally complementary academic offerings. Both schools have been struggling. It makes the new St. Joe's much more competitive in the Philadelphia region. They've been slipping. I would say the impact on athletics is that there will no longer be a USciences in sports.
Putting my old higher ed hat on...this is probably the shape of things to come. The hard part is figuring out how to blend two physical campuses. As long as schools can answer that big question, we'll see more.
What we're learning is that athletics is a big chunk to remove from the expenses sheet but you take a big hit on revenue from lost students. Cardale Jones reminded us why they're there.
I'm interested in the difference in price. Whose tuition model wins or do they meet somewhere in the middle?
Putting my old higher ed hat on...this is probably the shape of things to come. The hard part is figuring out how to blend two physical campuses. As long as schools can answer that big question, we'll see more.
What we're learning is that athletics is a big chunk to remove from the expenses sheet but you take a big hit on revenue from lost students. Cardale Jones reminded us why they're there.
I'm interested in the difference in price. Whose tuition model wins or do they meet somewhere in the middle?
I think their focus will be to increase enrollment through academic offerings and increasing their prestige. USciences athletics isn't that big of a deal. They have 12 sports between men and women and no football so I think you're talking about ~200 athletes. Plus, USciences has a 1100 person capacity BB facility but they play Baseball and Softball on a field owned by the Phillies and they play Tennis at UPenn. It's basically SJU acquiring some technical programs and the physical campus. The campuses aren't that far away from each other. I'm sure they'll have a shuttle service in operation.
I think their focus will be to increase enrollment through academic offerings and increasing their prestige. USciences athletics isn't that big of a deal. They have 12 sports between men and women and no football so I think you're talking about ~200 athletes. Plus, USciences has a 1100 person capacity BB facility but they play Baseball and Softball on a field owned by the Phillies and they play Tennis at UPenn. It's basically SJU acquiring some technical programs and the physical campus. The campuses aren't that far away from each other. I'm sure they'll have a shuttle service in operation.
The distance between the SJU campus at 54th/City and the USciences campus at 43rd/Woodland isn't exactly next to each other, but it's not an insurmountable distance for a shuttle. That said, the only thing I really recall about USciences' sports teams is that the son of former Philadelphia Flyer Tim Kerr played hoops there. The definitely don't have the history in Philly D2 hoops that, say, Philly Textile, oops, I mean Jefferson, has had over the years.
Comment