Can Colleges Survive Coronavirus? 'The Math Is Not Pretty'

NPR ^ | April 20, 2020 | Elissa Nadworny

[C19fan]

Most campuses in the United States are sitting empty. Courses are online, students are at home. And administrators are trying to figure out how to make the finances of that work. "The math is not pretty," says Robert Kelchen, who studies higher ed finance at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. "Colleges are stressed both on the revenue side and on the expenditure side." On one end of the equation, colleges are spending money to take classes online, in some situations purchasing software, training professors or outsourcing to online-only institutions. That's on top of refunds for room and board and parts of tuition. On the other side, money isn't coming back in, in the form of expected tuition and revenue from events such as athletics, conferences on campus and summer camps. College endowments, which can sometimes offer some insulation from hard financial times, have also taken a hit.

[C19fan]

Playing sad music on my Planck Length violin. Perhaps if these schools saved up instead of blowing money on blated administration, Diversity Commissars, and "Insert" Studies departments perhaps they could weather this stors.

[reasonisfaith]

If only!

[eyeamok]

Since they are Morally Bankrupt already, they can Financially go Bankrupt too.

[dfwgator]

Just go to any college and see how many millions (or billions) they have in endowments.

They’ll be fine.

[Drango]

Colleges are their own worst enemies. Faculty salaries have significantly outpaced inflation. And thousands of woke administrators have been hired to protect fragile snowflakes from real and imagined words that challenge their views.

[wastoute]

The question is, do they just sit and watch those endowments burn up or do they change under pressure? My guess is there will be a limit to how long they will hold out.

[Karma_Sherab]

The dorms can be converted to shelters for the homeless

[usafa92]

Boo hoo. They weren’t crying when they were putting students and parents deep in debt for an education worth 1/10th of what they were charging. And I don’t feel sorry for these out of touch professors who are whining that they need training. Tough, they can adapt, just like they tell every other worker in America when their job changes.

[HangnJudge]

STEM courses can easily be done online, these schools will survive just fine, just as Business classes will. Other academics, not so much...

Technical Schools often require more “hands on” teaching, such as engine repair, plumbing, and electrician. Medical and Nursing schools are definitely very... personal, by their nature.

[heshtesh]

Let them fail, maybe they can come back as teaching institutions.

[redfreedom]

The China Flu is not good for America for obvious health and economic reasons. But if this flu closes down institutions of higher brain washing, then maybe there is some good to it.

[BuckeyeGOP]

Colleges and Universities treated Obama’s nationalization of the student loan program like an open piggy bank, driving up tuition and sending millions of college kids into debt.

I hope they suffer greatly from this.

[tbw2]

Then you get the jerks at Harvard with a 40 billion dollar endowment ... taking bailout money.

[Zhang Fei]

[The question is, do they just sit and watch those endowments burn up or do they change under pressure? My guess is there will be a limit to how long they will hold out.]

---

Harvard’s endowment is $41b. Its recent annual operating budget was $4.5b. Even with fairly illiquid holdings, I suspect it will be a while before it has to cry uncle.

[Grampa Dave]

We have 2 grand kids home with their parents taking classes on the computer. One was attending a college on the East Coast and one was at a Cal State college.

They have not received a single penny back on their tuition paid in full before their classes were cancelled.

Also, the parents are out for the rental housing money they had paid for this semester.

Not many tears for the colleges from these parents.

[kabar]

Colleges are first and foremost a business. When the revenue doesn’t cover their fixed overhead costs, they are in trouble. And they can’t revert to their normal way of handling such shortfalls, i.e., raise tuition and room and board costs, knowing that the Feds will provide student loan guarantees.

Look for the Dems to support a college bailout bill.

[Grampa Dave]

Yep, they can learn how to code!

[kabar]

Federal guaranteed student loans allowed colleges to continue their spendthrift ways. Just increase tuition to cover the shortfalls. And add more foreign students who pay full freight.

[IronJack]

administrators are trying to figure out how to make the finances of that work. make themselves appear useful

[bigbob]

I wonder which traditional 4-year uni will be the first to pivot toward technical education. Their choices are to lead, to follow, or to go away. It’s not either-or, they could do both and broaden their base and — diversity is good, right?