College and the demographics cliff

I wouldn't be surprised if places like Methodist College and North Carolina Wesleyan have similar percentages. NCWC has a graduation rate of 29 percent for four-year students -- that's staggeringly terrible for a place with 14:1 student/professor ratio and $35,000/year tuition.

I have to guess a lot of freshmen show up to play sports and eventually wind up flunking out.

 

At the small D-III level, enticing marginal college athletes to come to your school to boost enrollment is a regular survival strategy. Finlandia had a three-digit enrollment in the 2000s when they decided to add football, renovating a local high school venue and putting in turf and lights. The "commitment ceremonies" and "letters of intent" came thick and fast. Sometimes I wondered where in the process they got around to telling these kids that, in D-III, there would be no scholarships.

From 2015 until the school shut down in 2023, they went 5-55 and had four coaches. They expelled as many players in one "escalating situation" with baseball team players as they won games in their program's history.

 

“Grace and Peace” is a great way to sign off on an email. That’s all I got.

 

Read that as "GREASE."

It's the word. Have you heard?

 

Since D-III has no scholarships, I'm sure all comers are welcome. Two decades ago I got into a discussion with a co-worker on whether the local D-III could beat our local high school 5A in football. We decided it would be a good game.

 

Concordia (Ann Arbor)'s athletic director told MLive that 70 percent of the students are athletes. The Board of Regents for Mequon/Ann Arbor meets today. It'll be interesting to see if they keep Ann Arbor open beyond the 2024-25 school year. I'm sure developers would love to get their hands on that land - along the Huron River and in an upscale part of Ann Arbor. https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbo...versity-amid-efforts-to-improve-finances.html

 

Well, the Concordia Mequon/Ann Arbor Board of Regents decided that starting June 1, 2025, the only undergraduate and graduate programs that will be on the Ann Arbor campus will be health-related (sonography, nursing, radiology, occupational/physical therapy and physician assistant). Online courses will include graduate-level education and business administration. That's it.

Students are encouraged to transfer to Mequon online or in person for the 2025-26 school year to complete other programs.

It'll be interesting to see how many students stay or go for 2024-25. I'm guessing it'll be based on how close they are to graduating. If I'm Eastern Michigan (my alma mater and just a few miles from Ann Arbor), I would aggressively recruit those students, especially in education and nursing, which are two of EMU's strongest programs. EMU has seen its enrollment drop, too - this might be a short-term fix.

 

Only two years into its transition to Division I, Lindenwood is in trouble.

https://fox2now.com/news/missouri/l...with-staff-layoffs-after-enrollment-concerns/

 

I think the Mequon, Wis., Concordia campus is pretty healthy, enrollment-wise. I can't imagine students from Ann Arbor transferring there, given the distance, but who knows?
Mequon is one of the tonier collar suburbs of Milwaukee. The school does have dorms that are popular, with lakeside views. So it is an attractive campus.

Like Concordia, Finlandia was a Lutheran-affiliated college, but it had a particularly Finnish vibe. When my parents were in their prime, you could hear Finnish spoken on the street in a lot of UP communities. Those days are long gone, and with them a point of distinction for Finlandia (then Suomi College). Their attempts to grow -- becoming a 4-year-school, adding athletic programs -- were actually signs that things were going south.

Another school on Lake Superior, Northland College, is in dire shape. It's in Ashland, a cute little town but miles and miles from anywhere. It's also focused on ecology and Native American studies, subjects that aren't popular in much of the MAGAland that surrounds it.

 

Lost another one today. Clarks Summit University, outside Scranton, was previously known as Baptist Bible College.

 

Thoughts and prayers.

 

Eastern Nazarene in Quincy, Mass., too.