Category: Education (higher ed)
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UVa Spending on Staff Surges, Spending on Students Trails
by James A. Bacon Always alert for opportunities to arm the University of Virginia Board of Visitors members with statistics they don’t see in their board presentations, The Jefferson Council presents the table above, compiled from data published by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). The takeaway: UVa boosted overall E&G (educational &…
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Changes in Student Populations and Choices of Majors in 4-Year Colleges and Universities 2010-2023 Challenge Virginia Schools
by James C. Sherlock Tastes change, and with them trends. Between fall 2010 and fall 2021, total undergraduate enrollment in degree-granting postsecondary institutions in America decreased by 15% percent (from 18.1 million to 15.4 million students). In Virginia’s 4-year public colleges and universities, the drop was 8% in that same period, right at the national…
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Student Vets Win Back Their Space
by James A. Bacon The Student Veterans of America (SVA) at the University of Virginia notched up a small win Friday when Student Affairs officials reversed a decision to expropriate some of the Veterans Center space at Newcomb Hall. But the veterans’ battle for recognition and respect at UVa is far from over. What they…
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More Ruminations on Higher Education in Virginia
by Dick Hall-Sizemore James Sherlock has done a great service for this blog by starting a conversation on the future of higher education in the Commonwealth. There are several paths that could be followed. One of his contributions was identifying the schools that have been losing enrollment. I was not surprised that Longwood, Radford, and…
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Huge Swings in Student Populations Among Virginia’s 4-year Public Colleges and Universities Have Consequences
by James C. Sherlock I have previously in this series on Virginia’s public institutions of higher learning (IHE’s) used the term “cannibalization” to describe some getting bigger and some getting smaller, a few much smaller, in terms of student populations. I will here provide the numbers to back that up. While the total undergraduates dropped…
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The Rats Return
by James A. Bacon Good news from the Virginia Military Institute! After seeing a drastic falloff t0 374 entering students last year, 491 students matriculated this fall. Last year’s decline capped off years of disastrous public relations stemming from a campaign by The Washington Post and the Northam administration to depict VMI as a racist,…
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Virginia’s State Higher Education System – A Concept for Magnet Schools among the Smaller Ones
by James C. Sherlock Yesterday I posted an article listing a series of challenges facing Virginia’s Institutions of Higher Learning. Today I will offer a concept for a solution designed to address both the cost of a 4-year degree and the thriving of the smaller schools. Create a magnet school program in the smaller schools:…
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Virginia State Colleges and Universities Slouching Towards a Cliff
by James C. Sherlock The economist Herb Stein once said that if something cannot go on forever, it will stop. The University of West Virginia has just stopped to take stock. Facing a $45 million shortfall, it had to cut programs. Instead of taking the unthinking way out — assigning a cut target to each…
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Faculty Bloat at UVa
by James A. Bacon A key cost driver at the University of Virginia is the increasing size and declining teaching productivity of its faculty. The topic appears to be taboo. The Board of Visitors hasn’t discussed it, and there is no indication from publicly available sources that the university administration has engaged in any introspection.…
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Impressions from a Weekend in Charlottesville
by James C. Sherlock Sometimes, things just force their way into your consciousness. My wife and I were in Charlottesville this weekend. We were not there to visit the University, but its continuing construction overwhelms both the senses and attempts to get from A to B. Most of the growth is vertical — very vertical —…
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Hard Numbers on Administrative Bloat
by James A. Bacon A number of University of Virginia Board of Visitors members have expressed concern about UVa’s runaway costs. Administrative bloat has swollen the university’s cost structure, they say, and higher costs have been cited in turn to justify tuition increases. So far, the fiscal hawks have been unable to force a discussion…
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More News from the Berkeley of the South
The fun never ends in the People’s Republic of Charlottesville. Rather than subject readers to excessive content about the University of Virginia, I’ll boil the latest two stories down to their essence and provide links for those who wish to read more. The Curious Case of the Missing Podcasts. Walter Smith delves into the 2019…
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An Investigation… into an Alleged Attempt to Discredit a Student Newspaper… that Criticized the VMI Administration
by James A. Bacon There appears in the minutes of the Virginia Military Institute Board of Visitors meeting of July 13, 2023 an abbreviated mention of a very hot topic: Mr. [Thomas E.] Gottwald raised concerns about the administration’s continued conflict with The Cadet newspaper. Five news articles have been written regarding a challenge to…
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Ryan Ignored Board of Visitors in Formulating Admissions Policy
by James A. Bacon When University of Virginia President Jim Ryan and Provost Ian Baucom announced the university’s new admissions policy last week, they made a point of saying that they had sought input and guidance from “leaders across the university,” including members of the Office of University Counsel. But one key group was not…
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How Did VCU Miss the Red Flags?
by Jon Baliles The unravelling saga of a failed development proposal downtown a block from City Hall that was supposed to rise out of the ashes of the failed Navy Hill project is still smoldering. The failed deal has come with a price tag of about $80 million so far (and growing) for VCU Health.…