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They are cutting based on positions related to enrollment. |
WV has a program now making it very, very inexpensive for any WV student with a B average in a WV high school. |
They've nothing and they're out of ideas |
Maybe get off your a** and perhaps read any number of articles on the topic. If it makes you feel any better in the WSJ article specfic to UWV they quote the following: "Meanwhile, the population of West Virginia high-school graduates fell, and the share of students proceeding directly to college dropped from 55% in 2011 to 46% for the class of 2022." Also, there is this: "With a hot job market, more are deciding not to pursue higher education. This spring of 2023, there were 14.2 million undergraduates in the U.S., which is about 9% fewer than were enrolled in spring 2019, according to research out this week from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center." Also this: "The first couple of generations to go through using primarily the student loan system was more of an experiment," Stephanie Hall, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, told Insider. "I think younger generations have seen the impact of that debt on the older generations, especially as some of us have navigated more than one inflationary or recessionary period," Hall said. "So that's certainly impacting students' college-going habits." |
Those are all claims individual people are making about causes of shifts in college enrollment--not data about a causal relationship. Typically in low unemployment periods college enrollment goes down--this has been historically true. The pandemic also made students less college-ready than before--both academically and in terms of general mental health. We also had years of restricted immigration and more restrictive policies on international students since 2016 and then even more during the pandemic, which had previously been a growing source of college enrollment. I actually read a lot about this issue, and it's not anywhere as simple as you are claiming. |
I am not claiming anything...I am quoting sources that have spent time researching the issue. I guess we just have to take your word for it that you are an expert on the issue. |
A ten point in-state drop on going to a 4-year college is indeed huge. The "everyone just borrow for state school" plan works great if you live in a place with rising wages (that's not WV) or great job growth (not WV again) or lots of white collar jobs that need professionals with at least a BA (thrid strike and WV is out). There's no Huntsville in WV to attract wealthy/educated migrants with high paying (for the area) jobs, Morgantown is what they had and they are pulling the rug out. The next step is faculty recruitment going into the toilet because nobody wants to work for a sinking ship where their department may be yoinked at any time. Even chemistry professors are going to be like "where do I get TAs from and do I actually have institutional support for grants." |
You made a causal claim about the drop in enrollment: "This is primarily due to fewer HS grads attending due to cost and seeing so many underemployed college grads." So I was asking if you had evidence for that causal claim-- because I've read a lot of studies and haven't seen that evidence. Quotes from other people who sort of think similar things don't work for me without a link to the study that supported it (I mean, sure, it's a no-brainer that cost IMPACTS college attendance, but is that a primary cause of the decline in enrollment since 2013? That's occurring after the time period when college costs had their most rapid rise---they have risen a lot less between 2010 and 2022 than in earlier decades). And I don't see any of your evidence talking about a) whether there are more underemployed college grads in this time period and b)whether HS grads are paying attention to that. I wasn't being snarky--I wanted to know if you had evidence for that claim. Because honestly I don't think researchers really have a handle on what is impacting college enrollment trends--there's a lot of contradictory information. |
I mean WTF do you want? This is DCUM not the internal board for the National Association of Economists. I quoted legitimate 3rd party sources and you simply responded with comments that emanate from your posterior. |
Jeez, I'm not saying I have alternate evidence--I was just asking if you actually have a source with evidence on the "why" of college enrollment numbers. My initial post was just "Evidence for this claim?" And you went straight into "get off your a** and read" --which I have done. My POV based on this reading is that no one actually knows--your sources show that experts are willing to say some of their ideas on what they think, but no "our survey of x" or "data suggests" etc. I'm not in battle on this--I don't have a particular perspective I hold--I was just curious if there was data for the claim. |
They cut the "expensive" faculty, it sounds like. Humanities aren't paid that well. |
They aren't, either in the public or private sector. |
And a lot of the humanities folks teach the gen ed comp courses that have huge enrollments. |
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https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/tenure/2023/08/11/west-virginia-universitys-unprecedented-proposed-cuts-become
“It’s hard to imagine any university, anywhere in the world, not teaching world languages, let alone the state flagship, land-grant, R1 university in a state like West Virginia,” said Lisa Di Bartolomeo, a teaching professor of Russian studies at West Virginia, noting that the state has faced a brain drain for generations and has low “intercultural competencies.” Why would anyone take Russian studies at WVU? |