The beginning of the end for Marymount University

[Anonymous]

I don’t think it will go under within 4 years. This paragraph is encouraging:

“The stable outlook reflects our expectation that Marymount's enrollment will remain at least stable, while the university continues to operate at a small deficit on a full-accrual basis without incurring a covenant violation. We also expect the university to at least maintain current financial resources with no expectations of additional debt issuance.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think it will go under within 4 years. This paragraph is encouraging:

“The stable outlook reflects our expectation that Marymount's enrollment will remain at least stable, while the university continues to operate at a small deficit on a full-accrual basis without incurring a covenant violation. We also expect the university to at least maintain current financial resources with no expectations of additional debt issuance.”

Does the "stable enrollment" take into account that the population of kids applying to college will be decreasing within the next year or 2?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think it will go under within 4 years. This paragraph is encouraging:

“The stable outlook reflects our expectation that Marymount's enrollment will remain at least stable, while the university continues to operate at a small deficit on a full-accrual basis without incurring a covenant violation. We also expect the university to at least maintain current financial resources with no expectations of additional debt issuance.”

Does the "stable enrollment" take into account that the population of kids applying to college will be decreasing within the next year or 2?

Here is the article on upcoming enrollment "cliff" for colleges due to population decline.

https://www.bestcolleges.com/news/analysis/looming-enrollment-cliff-poses-serious-threat-to-colleges/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not an attractive campus, even with the Blue Goose gone.

I like the school but frankly we are about to see huge consolidation of schools.

A lot of non-selective colleges are going to close and there is really no stopping it.

I am hoping that more selective schools will pick up some campuses and run a second tier school for their waitlist and allow them top transfer to their main campus after their freshman year or something like that.

Kind of like UVA does with UVA wise.

They need to convert some of these campuses to residential trade schools plus nursing and practical business classes.

There is definitely a market for kids who want to pursue trades but don't want to miss out on the traditional college experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not an attractive campus, even with the Blue Goose gone.

I like the school but frankly we are about to see huge consolidation of schools.

A lot of non-selective colleges are going to close and there is really no stopping it.

I am hoping that more selective schools will pick up some campuses and run a second tier school for their waitlist and allow them top transfer to their main campus after their freshman year or something like that.

Kind of like UVA does with UVA wise.

I see no downside to this. We keep hearing that there are "more qualified applicants than we can admit, sorry you're rejected". Then why not find a place for these students at these private, selective colleges? Let them prove it in an auxiliary campus they can do the work, then let them in. Emory created a whole campus for this reason, Northeastern has their NU.in. USC has their Trojan Transfer. But many more state universities do it too, like the Univ. of California schools, UConn has their branch campuses, Penn State has their branches and allows transfers in. Michigan has guaranteed pathways. Univ Florida uses Santa Fe Community College.

Florida has done this for years.

The feeder schools have dorms and normal campus life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not an attractive campus, even with the Blue Goose gone.

I like the school but frankly we are about to see huge consolidation of schools.

A lot of non-selective colleges are going to close and there is really no stopping it.

I am hoping that more selective schools will pick up some campuses and run a second tier school for their waitlist and allow them top transfer to their main campus after their freshman year or something like that.

Kind of like UVA does with UVA wise.

They need to convert some of these campuses to residential trade schools plus nursing and practical business classes.

There is definitely a market for kids who want to pursue trades but don't want to miss out on the traditional college experience.

This could be difficult considering the alternative is community college which is much cheaper. Not many UMC students want to study trades and blue collar families probably don’t see the value or don’t want to pay for a residential experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.catholicherald.com/article/local/largest-class-in-marymounts-history/

Well, this article says they just enrolled the largest class ever. Hopefully things will continue to go in the right direction. The beginning of seeing a return on their investment.

I saw this link to VA Higher Ed in another thread and pulled up Marymount from the drop down box.

https://research.schev.edu/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=Enrollment.ExcludingDE&rdRequestForwarding=Form

It shows their base enrollment has been declining for a number of years. It was 2,256 in 2018 and has declined each year since and shows 1,815 for the 2024-2025 year. I’m not understanding how they can claim record enrollment for 2024-2025. Maybe they are including high school dual enrollment students in their totals but that is a bit misleading. This same table shows they used to have around 30 or so dual enrollment students a year and have increased it to 690 for the 2024-2025 school year. I don’t think these students pay for classes, and definitely aren’t full time paying students. My son’s high school has dual enrollment with another university and they don’t pay for classes.

So the school is boasting record enrollment yet 30% of that population are non paying high school dual enrollment students? Seems to be a bit of creative accounting/marketing. They don’t actually state this fall’s enrollment number in the Catholic Higher Ed article either which is interesting. They only talk about applicant numbers and inquiries.

The bigger concern is obviously the drop in tuition revenue from a decline of 450 full time students (20% drop). How are they making up that $18,000,000 based on tuition at 40k/student and how long can the school sustain these declines?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.catholicherald.com/article/local/largest-class-in-marymounts-history/

Well, this article says they just enrolled the largest class ever. Hopefully things will continue to go in the right direction. The beginning of seeing a return on their investment.

I saw this link to VA Higher Ed in another thread and pulled up Marymount from the drop down box.

https://research.schev.edu/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=Enrollment.ExcludingDE&rdRequestForwarding=Form

It shows their base enrollment has been declining for a number of years. It was 2,256 in 2018 and has declined each year since and shows 1,815 for the 2024-2025 year. I’m not understanding how they can claim record enrollment for 2024-2025. Maybe they are including high school dual enrollment students in their totals but that is a bit misleading. This same table shows they used to have around 30 or so dual enrollment students a year and have increased it to 690 for the 2024-2025 school year. I don’t think these students pay for classes, and definitely aren’t full time paying students. My son’s high school has dual enrollment with another university and they don’t pay for classes.

So the school is boasting record enrollment yet 30% of that population are non paying high school dual enrollment students? Seems to be a bit of creative accounting/marketing. They don’t actually state this fall’s enrollment number in the Catholic Higher Ed article either which is interesting. They only talk about applicant numbers and inquiries.

The bigger concern is obviously the drop in tuition revenue from a decline of 450 full time students (20% drop). How are they making up that $18,000,000 based on tuition at 40k/student and how long can the school sustain these declines?

They should go public. Low performing VA publics get more $ per full time student than high performers because they wouldn't be able to survive without it. Could also hire a savvy marketing director? Rename?

[Anonymous]

Does William and Mary have a DC campus? That might be a nice place for those students to get a more urban setting for a year or for graduate school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does William and Mary have a DC campus? That might be a nice place for those students to get a more urban setting for a year or for graduate school.

Maybe a standalone medical school, with NP, and PA programs to go with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does William and Mary have a DC campus? That might be a nice place for those students to get a more urban setting for a year or for graduate school.

Maybe a standalone medical school, with NP, and PA programs to go with it.

Yes. Know people who were disappointed WM did not have nursing. This would be nice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s the president! She needs to go she spends all their money to go on trips

Once Ford borrowed all it could to get 21 billion in cash. Even had to pledge rights to the Ford name. Then the pandemic came and not only did they not go bankrupt, they increased market share, paid the loan back and increased dividend. Sometimes you have to spend to make it work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not an attractive campus, even with the Blue Goose gone.

I like the school but frankly we are about to see huge consolidation of schools.

A lot of non-selective colleges are going to close and there is really no stopping it.

I am hoping that more selective schools will pick up some campuses and run a second tier school for their waitlist and allow them top transfer to their main campus after their freshman year or something like that.

Kind of like UVA does with UVA wise.

Yes! Does VTech have something like this yet?

[Anonymous]

W&M does have a Washington Center in DC. And VT has the new Innovation campus in Alexandria.

I’m not sure how difficult it is for a religious higher education institution (where land and property is owned by the Catholic Church) to be acquired by the state. Probably somewhat complicated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.catholicherald.com/article/local/largest-class-in-marymounts-history/

Well, this article says they just enrolled the largest class ever. Hopefully things will continue to go in the right direction. The beginning of seeing a return on their investment.

I saw this link to VA Higher Ed in another thread and pulled up Marymount from the drop down box.

https://research.schev.edu/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=Enrollment.ExcludingDE&rdRequestForwarding=Form

It shows their base enrollment has been declining for a number of years. It was 2,256 in 2018 and has declined each year since and shows 1,815 for the 2024-2025 year. I’m not understanding how they can claim record enrollment for 2024-2025. Maybe they are including high school dual enrollment students in their totals but that is a bit misleading. This same table shows they used to have around 30 or so dual enrollment students a year and have increased it to 690 for the 2024-2025 school year. I don’t think these students pay for classes, and definitely aren’t full time paying students. My son’s high school has dual enrollment with another university and they don’t pay for classes.

So the school is boasting record enrollment yet 30% of that population are non paying high school dual enrollment students? Seems to be a bit of creative accounting/marketing. They don’t actually state this fall’s enrollment number in the Catholic Higher Ed article either which is interesting. They only talk about applicant numbers and inquiries.

The bigger concern is obviously the drop in tuition revenue from a decline of 450 full time students (20% drop). How are they making up that $18,000,000 based on tuition at 40k/student and how long can the school sustain these declines?

Public school students aren’t charged for DE classes but the county pays the college. Probably some pre-arranged rate that of course is far less than a full time student (even per credit), but not nothing. I promise you that private colleges like Marymount are not educated hundreds of high school students for free out of the goodness of their hearts.