Anonymous wrote:Interesting article and I was surprised to see Mary Washington having more problems than Radford or Longwood. Also surprised to see Christopher Newport in the list. Not surprised to see VA state or Norfolk. They should probably combine to be one strong school and maybe they could attract some students who were heading to Howard.
The report doesn’t mean any state level actions will take place but I think it is interesting and there likely does need to be action.
https://cardinalnews.org/2024/10/09/state-report-says-seven-small-universities-should-be-monitored-as-enrollment-cliff-approaches/
"“In hopes of mitigating its enrollment decline, Mary Washington heavily discounted tuition and fees for several years,” the report said. “This heavy discounting weakened the institution’s pricing power in the higher education market for students. Mary Washington believed that if not enough students were willing to pay its tuition and fees, it needed to reduce them to entice more students to enroll. Though the discounting strategy may have helped stem enrollment loss, it reduced Mary Washington’s total revenue.” That’s forced the school to cut costs, the report said, and it has reduced staffing 20% since 2017, “primarily through attrition.” "
that aligns with how people view WMU- a good enough school that uses merit to attract students