UVM projects 15% drop in freshman class, faces $12M deficit

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure the Democrats letting Burlington turn into a hell-hole had nothing to do with it.

Get over yourself, it's not that bad. All cities have crime.

You might want to read this. Burlington gets an F. https://crimegrade.org/safest-places-in-burlington-vt/

[Anonymous]

We stopped in Burlington during a trip to visit colleges in New England. I had fond memories of a visit to UVM several decades ago and was disappointed to see how rundown and depressed Burlington looked.

[Anonymous]

I didn’t even know Vermont had crime issues, I learned a new thing today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure the Democrats letting Burlington turn into a hell-hole had nothing to do with it.

Get over yourself, it's not that bad. All cities have crime.

You might want to read this. Burlington gets an F. https://crimegrade.org/safest-places-in-burlington-vt/

Oh look, some random website that you cherry picked. It says F about my zip code here in DC too, and I think it's perfectly fine. I've been very happy for more than 15 years here with no break-ins or muggings whatsoever. The biggest crime on our block was white collar.

Crime in Vermont tends to be property crime more than violent crime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure the Democrats letting Burlington turn into a hell-hole had nothing to do with it.

Get over yourself, it's not that bad. All cities have crime.

You might want to read this. Burlington gets an F. https://crimegrade.org/safest-places-in-burlington-vt/

And where the campus is gets an A- or B. If you have a son, Burlington is perfectly fine. And your daughter is much less safe at a big sec school than uvm. No one complains about crime in Berkeley or Ann Arbor. Burlington reminds me of how Vancouver is set up. The drug use and homeless is very concentrated around a certain area. Don’t go there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVM's President is delusional. Talk about a lack of accountability. She blames the plummeting enrollment numbers on the demographic cliff and losing out on international students because of visa concerns who enroll at presumably stronger colleges in the US.

In a normal year guess how many freshman students UVM enrolls who are international?

About 45! (out of almost 2800 students)

When your acceptance rate is over 70%, your yield is 15% and you rely on 80% OOS students paying $70k a year you have a problem.

With plunging enrollment a tidy death spiral problem.

The argument is that it’s trickle down from the high end schools not enrolling as many internationals. The t20 don’t enroll as many kids, so Americans who have them as a reach get in, then then the kids who would’ve gone to uvm go to the t20-50 per se.

And the demographic cliff is real. I think Maryland announced something similar last month.

I wouldn’t want to be an assistant administrator making $150k in some weird student services program right now.

International undergraduate students are flat or up at most colleges for last year, even the more selective ones. UVM's problem is that it relies on a bunch of OOS, full-pay families. The colleges in the T50 are all getting more applications. Even the other New England flagships aren't suffering as much as UVM. Applications are up at UMass and UConn. The UVM president is a hoot with her excuses.

Not true. Occidental, which is ranked 35th on USNWR, has exactly the same enrollment problem. As with UVM, it had a catastrophic 15% ($6M) reduction in enrollment last year, which, for some reason, couldn't even be filled by wait-list students. Oxy reacted by cutting all faculty perks, stopping all hiring for vacant positions, and bringing in an enrollment specialist in admissions. That person decided that the best way to attack its dismal admissions numbers was to offer the "Occidental Commitment" scholarship, which is simply a bribe to ED students to commit to Oxy, and they get a $15,000 "scholarship" off the $95,365 a year.

Oxy's problems are compounded by a 2024 settlement with DOJ, ED, and the Louis Brandeis Center for Human Rights under Law for failure to protect the civil rights of Jewish students. Since October 8th, no less than 15 Jewish students have felt scared enough that they have transferred, the most recent being an Israeli student on full scholarship. She transferred to USC. As with Harvard and columbia, Jewish parents are concerned and will pick the campus that will provide a healthy environment for their children. Google Occidental or Oxy and MVP and SJP.

FWIW, Oxy's selectivity is only 45%, and its yield is an astonishingly low 4% according to Collegevine. Only 15% of alums give to the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure the Democrats letting Burlington turn into a hell-hole had nothing to do with it.

Get over yourself, it's not that bad. All cities have crime.

You might want to read this. Burlington gets an F. https://crimegrade.org/safest-places-in-burlington-vt/

And where the campus is gets an A- or B. If you have a son, Burlington is perfectly fine. And your daughter is much less safe at a big sec school than uvm. No one complains about crime in Berkeley or Ann Arbor. Burlington reminds me of how Vancouver is set up. The drug use and homeless is very concentrated around a certain area. Don’t go there.

This. You're more likely to get injured while skiing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVM's President is delusional. Talk about a lack of accountability. She blames the plummeting enrollment numbers on the demographic cliff and losing out on international students because of visa concerns who enroll at presumably stronger colleges in the US.

In a normal year guess how many freshman students UVM enrolls who are international?

About 45! (out of almost 2800 students)

When your acceptance rate is over 70%, your yield is 15% and you rely on 80% OOS students paying $70k a year you have a problem.

With plunging enrollment a tidy death spiral problem.

The argument is that it’s trickle down from the high end schools not enrolling as many internationals. The t20 don’t enroll as many kids, so Americans who have them as a reach get in, then then the kids who would’ve gone to uvm go to the t20-50 per se.

And the demographic cliff is real. I think Maryland announced something similar last month.

I wouldn’t want to be an assistant administrator making $150k in some weird student services program right now.

International undergraduate students are flat or up at most colleges for last year, even the more selective ones. UVM's problem is that it relies on a bunch of OOS, full-pay families. The colleges in the T50 are all getting more applications. Even the other New England flagships aren't suffering as much as UVM. Applications are up at UMass and UConn. The UVM president is a hoot with her excuses.

Not true. Occidental, which is ranked 35th on USNWR, has exactly the same enrollment problem. As with UVM, it had a catastrophic 15% ($6M) reduction in enrollment last year, which, for some reason, couldn't even be filled by wait-list students. Oxy reacted by cutting all faculty perks, stopping all hiring for vacant positions, and bringing in an enrollment specialist in admissions. That person decided that the best way to attack its dismal admissions numbers was to offer the "Occidental Commitment" scholarship, which is simply a bribe to ED students to commit to Oxy, and they get a $15,000 "scholarship" off the $95,365 a year.

Oxy's problems are compounded by a 2024 settlement with DOJ, ED, and the Louis Brandeis Center for Human Rights under Law for failure to protect the civil rights of Jewish students. Since October 8th, no less than 15 Jewish students have felt scared enough that they have transferred, the most recent being an Israeli student on full scholarship. She transferred to USC. As with Harvard and columbia, Jewish parents are concerned and will pick the campus that will provide a healthy environment for their children. Google Occidental or Oxy and MVP and SJP.

FWIW, Oxy's selectivity is only 45%, and its yield is an astonishingly low 4% according to Collegevine. Only 15% of alums give to the school.

LOL. When people say Top 50 it doesn’t mean the USNWR list of liberal arts schools, it means national universities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure the Democrats letting Burlington turn into a hell-hole had nothing to do with it.

Get over yourself, it's not that bad. All cities have crime.

You might want to read this. Burlington gets an F. https://crimegrade.org/safest-places-in-burlington-vt/

And where the campus is gets an A- or B. If you have a son, Burlington is perfectly fine. And your daughter is much less safe at a big sec school than uvm. No one complains about crime in Berkeley or Ann Arbor. Burlington reminds me of how Vancouver is set up. The drug use and homeless is very concentrated around a certain area. Don’t go there.

Actually, lots of people complain about the crime in Berkeley.

[Anonymous]

A bit of a haul from campus, but the South End is where the locals have retreated. For going out and bars (as well as off-campus housing), Winooski is great. Grad students have already figured that out.

UVM is leaning hard into R1, which I think is the right strategy to deal with the demographic cliff. I would give high marks to UVM for its courtship of OOS students. That has run its course.

Unfortunately, Burlington is a liability. I don't think the downtown will get any worse, but the rebound will take time. Meanwhile, there are still a bunch of great neighborhoods for students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure the Democrats letting Burlington turn into a hell-hole had nothing to do with it.

Get over yourself, it's not that bad. All cities have crime.

You might want to read this. Burlington gets an F. https://crimegrade.org/safest-places-in-burlington-vt/

And where the campus is gets an A- or B. If you have a son, Burlington is perfectly fine. And your daughter is much less safe at a big sec school than uvm. No one complains about crime in Berkeley or Ann Arbor. Burlington reminds me of how Vancouver is set up. The drug use and homeless is very concentrated around a certain area. Don’t go there.

University of Michigan falls into the fun big university/ clean safe town category of the SEC schools and big Midwestern/southern schools.

They are a world and class above a place like Burlington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure the Democrats letting Burlington turn into a hell-hole had nothing to do with it.

Get over yourself, it's not that bad. All cities have crime.

You might want to read this. Burlington gets an F. https://crimegrade.org/safest-places-in-burlington-vt/

And where the campus is gets an A- or B. If you have a son, Burlington is perfectly fine. And your daughter is much less safe at a big sec school than uvm. No one complains about crime in Berkeley or Ann Arbor. Burlington reminds me of how Vancouver is set up. The drug use and homeless is very concentrated around a certain area. Don’t go there.

Actually, lots of people complain about the crime in Berkeley.

And Michigan is a very different university thand Burlington.

Michigan falls in the same desirable bucket as the SEC schools. No enticement or bribery necessary. Kids want to attend schools like Michigan and Florida.

[Anonymous]

Take a look at what they do with Early Decision. The trend is bad, very bad.

2024
ED applied: 479
ES accepted 449

2025
ED applied 396
ED accepted 363

[Anonymous]

The economy is not great right now. I wouldn’t be surprised if parents of would-be OOS UVM students, most of whom are from nearby states, are putting their foot down and telling Larla to attend SUNY Buffalo or TCNJ or a less-expensive OOS option like JMU, rather than pony up $60K for UVM.

Sure some kids get merit $$, but for those who don’t? is the skiing worth it? Kids can go to University of Utah and be less than an hour from like 6 mountains and it costs like $43,000 OOS (And you can get in-state tuition after freshman year by staying in Utah for the summer).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVM's President is delusional. Talk about a lack of accountability. She blames the plummeting enrollment numbers on the demographic cliff and losing out on international students because of visa concerns who enroll at presumably stronger colleges in the US.

In a normal year guess how many freshman students UVM enrolls who are international?

About 45! (out of almost 2800 students)

When your acceptance rate is over 70%, your yield is 15% and you rely on 80% OOS students paying $70k a year you have a problem.

With plunging enrollment a tidy death spiral problem.

The argument is that it’s trickle down from the high end schools not enrolling as many internationals. The t20 don’t enroll as many kids, so Americans who have them as a reach get in, then then the kids who would’ve gone to uvm go to the t20-50 per se.

And the demographic cliff is real. I think Maryland announced something similar last month.

I wouldn’t want to be an assistant administrator making $150k in some weird student services program right now.

International undergraduate students are flat or up at most colleges for last year, even the more selective ones. UVM's problem is that it relies on a bunch of OOS, full-pay families. The colleges in the T50 are all getting more applications. Even the other New England flagships aren't suffering as much as UVM. Applications are up at UMass and UConn. The UVM president is a hoot with her excuses.

Not true. Occidental, which is ranked 35th on USNWR, has exactly the same enrollment problem. As with UVM, it had a catastrophic 15% ($6M) reduction in enrollment last year, which, for some reason, couldn't even be filled by wait-list students. Oxy reacted by cutting all faculty perks, stopping all hiring for vacant positions, and bringing in an enrollment specialist in admissions. That person decided that the best way to attack its dismal admissions numbers was to offer the "Occidental Commitment" scholarship, which is simply a bribe to ED students to commit to Oxy, and they get a $15,000 "scholarship" off the $95,365 a year.

Oxy's problems are compounded by a 2024 settlement with DOJ, ED, and the Louis Brandeis Center for Human Rights under Law for failure to protect the civil rights of Jewish students. Since October 8th, no less than 15 Jewish students have felt scared enough that they have transferred, the most recent being an Israeli student on full scholarship. She transferred to USC. As with Harvard and columbia, Jewish parents are concerned and will pick the campus that will provide a healthy environment for their children. Google Occidental or Oxy and MVP and SJP.

FWIW, Oxy's selectivity is only 45%, and its yield is an astonishingly low 4% according to Collegevine. Only 15% of alums give to the school.

LOL. When people say Top 50 it doesn’t mean the USNWR list of liberal arts schools, it means national universities.

Neither represent general top-50 lists, even by U.S. News standards.