Future of Division III

[WUPHF]

This reminds me of a Warren Buffett quote: "Price is what you pay, value is what you get."  If being the cheapest tuition correlated into the highest enrollment, Happy Valley Community College would have 80k students instead of Penn State.

Warren might have a different take on colleges and universities which have traditionally been perceived as a Veblen good.  That is, the more you pay, the better the value.

And traditionally, the research shows, that students and parents effectively add in the value of the scholarship to the cost when calculating the value.  For example, if I get a $30,000 scholarship to cover the $39,975 cost of tuition at Emory and Henry, I believe I am getting an education valued at $39,975 even though I am paying $10,000.

Is the student going to believe that they are getting a comparable education when they get a $10,000 scholarship to cover the $19,990 cost of tuition.  Prior data would mostly say no, but things change over time.

I am not convinced by the decision to slash tuition as a long term play, but it does get headlines and draws people over the short term.  Probably better would be for Emory and Henry to return to Division III.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I know I've posted it before, but I remember one coach at a pretty selective, academically elite school telling me why they couldn't "right size" tuition like these other schools.

He said, "None of our parents want to pay less for college than they did for high school."

I imagine the pool of prospective students and where they went to high school plays into the pricing decision much more than anything else.

[CNU85]

CNU85, don't take this the wrong way--it helps to have a $200 million from the state.  Of course, the University has to be great stewards of the money to keep the level, and it sounds like CNU as stepped up.  As a Virginia taxpayer, I am glad you are able to boast on your alma mater!

2025 Budgets:
CNU: $201m
W&M: $469m
GMU: $1.5b
JMU: $784m
Longwood: $175m
Norfolk State: $240m
ODU:$585m
Radford: $285m
Mary Wash.: $175m
UVA: $2.2b ($68m for UVA-Wise)
VCU: $1.5b
VMI: $104m
Tech: $1.8b (gotta pay for a new coach...)
VSU: $234m

I didn't take it the wrong way at all. Facts are what they are. I appreciate it. And you are correct in that CNU is a good steward of what is received. It is also difficult (for me) to always understand what is truly paid by the state. I'm interested in knowing your source. I looked at Budget Bill HB1600 and get $115 Million for FY 2025 and that dropped to $109 Million for FY 2026. Still not chump change.

Also, none of the building costs came from the state appropriations budget. They are all funded by bonds. And as you are most likely aware, in Virginia, zero state money goes towards athletics.

[IC798891]

Surprisingly, CNU's admission rate is somewhere in the mid-80s (86% for the class that entered last year per CNU itself).  Of that 86%, only 18% actually enrolled.

Admitting 6300 freshmen with a total student body of 4500 seems a little crazy. Can't be a common practice, right?  Would probably run into issues if more students decided they wanted to live near the water.

No, this is standard practice. You have your estimated yield rate, and work from there to get the size you want.

Yes, if one year you unexpectedly get 20% instead of 18%, you're going to end up with an extra 126 students. Not only is this something most colleges would kill for, you make it work. Singles turn into doubles, doubles into triples, people stay in lounges, you loosen your off campus housing policy.

[CNU85]

Surprisingly, CNU's admission rate is somewhere in the mid-80s (86% for the class that entered last year per CNU itself).  Of that 86%, only 18% actually enrolled.

Admitting 6300 freshmen with a total student body of 4500 seems a little crazy. Can't be a common practice, right?  Would probably run into issues if more students decided they wanted to live near the water.

No, this is standard practice. You have your estimated yield rate, and work from there to get the size you want.

Yes, if one year you unexpectedly get 20% instead of 18%, you're going to end up with an extra 126 students. Not only is this something most colleges would kill for, you make it work. Singles turn into doubles, doubles into triples, people stay in lounges, you loosen your off campus housing policy.

I think in the past 15 years or so, Virginia Tech ran into an issue when more accepted than they predicted with the yield. They were putting 3 to a 2 person dorm room and renting hotel rooms nearby.

[Gregory Sager]

I've always understood a Veblen good to be more about exclusivity and the countervailing tendency of the product to rise in demand as it rises in price than it is about its actual value, if value = quality.

(Not that I want this discussion to veer off into the semantics of economics terms. I'm trying to rein in my tendency to digress on d3boards, and, as you can see, my reining-in efforts are meeting with limited success. )

[IC798891]

Just as an example, say you want an incoming class of 1,000 students.

You do your research — based on myriad factors — and estimate you're going to get a yield rate of 10%. So you're going to need to accept 10,000 students.

There are plenty of ways to still "miss" your number, though.

Maybe you only get 9,500 applicants.

Maybe your yield rate is 9%, instead of 10%

Maybe you get 12,000 applicants but they're not dispersed in a way where you can take 10,000. If a lot of them are in programs where you have hard enrollment caps due to space limitations — there may only be so many rehearsal rooms or editing bays, or whatever — then an extra 100 people applying to be musical performance majors can't help your enrollment the way 100 more sociology majors would.

[IC798891]

Surprisingly, CNU's admission rate is somewhere in the mid-80s (86% for the class that entered last year per CNU itself).  Of that 86%, only 18% actually enrolled.

Admitting 6300 freshmen with a total student body of 4500 seems a little crazy. Can't be a common practice, right?  Would probably run into issues if more students decided they wanted to live near the water.

No, this is standard practice. You have your estimated yield rate, and work from there to get the size you want.

Yes, if one year you unexpectedly get 20% instead of 18%, you're going to end up with an extra 126 students. Not only is this something most colleges would kill for, you make it work. Singles turn into doubles, doubles into triples, people stay in lounges, you loosen your off campus housing policy.

I think in the past 15 years or so, Virginia Tech ran into an issue when more accepted than they predicted with the yield. They were putting 3 to a 2 person dorm room and renting hotel rooms nearby.

Ithaca did the same thing in its heyday. You don't even blink at it because they're still paying more than they're costing you and everyone who graduates is a potential rich alumni donor.

You don't necessarily want to make it a practice, because you have to grow other areas of campus in ways that might come back to bite you when you have to tighten things up when they return to normal (which is what schools mean when they say "right-sizing")

But in this environment? Good luck finding an enrollment management person who's going to complain about too many students in the incoming class.

[MCScots2013]

CNU85, don't take this the wrong way--it helps to have a $200 million from the state.  Of course, the University has to be great stewards of the money to keep the level, and it sounds like CNU as stepped up.  As a Virginia taxpayer, I am glad you are able to boast on your alma mater!

2025 Budgets:
CNU: $201m
W&M: $469m
GMU: $1.5b
JMU: $784m
Longwood: $175m
Norfolk State: $240m
ODU:$585m
Radford: $285m
Mary Wash.: $175m
UVA: $2.2b ($68m for UVA-Wise)
VCU: $1.5b
VMI: $104m
Tech: $1.8b (gotta pay for a new coach...)
VSU: $234m

I didn't take it the wrong way at all. Facts are what they are. I appreciate it. And you are correct in that CNU is a good steward of what is received. It is also difficult (for me) to always understand what is truly paid by the state. I'm interested in knowing your source. I looked at Budget Bill HB1600 and get $115 Million for FY 2025 and that dropped to $109 Million for FY 2026. Still not chump change.

Also, none of the building costs came from the state appropriations budget. They are all funded by bonds. And as you are most likely aware, in Virginia, zero state money goes towards athletics.

You may have caught me with my pants down and not paying enough attention between Teams call this afternoon. From the biennial 2024 budget, but the big, bold "Introduced" didn't catch my eye.  https://budget.lis.virginia.gov/secretariat/2024/1/HB30/Introduced/1/office-of-education/

Although no state money goes towards athletics, facilities/salaries/etc. don't have to necessarily compete with athletics for donor money.  If I'm a graduate of CNU I'm earmarking my money for athletics since my taxes can't be.

[CNU85]

Thanks MCScots. I appreciate that input. I like looking at stuff like this. I'm a numbers nerd. (Hence, I was an adjunct Finance professor for several years). I used to serve on the CNU Education Foundation which oversees the endowment but my 3 terms ended a few years ago. Now my only official involvement is serving on the Athletic Advisory Council.

Just about all of my money to CNU goes to athletics. The President's Suite for football games has my name on it. Also, I started the QB Club 3 years ago to help the football team as much as possible.

I do provide funds for an annual scholarship in my daughter's name. And sometimes I will make a special donation for the arts at CNU. But mostly it is athletics.

Thanks again and feel free to send me fun stuff like this anytime!

[WUPHF]

I've always understood a Veblen good to be more about exclusivity and the countervailing tendency of the product to rise in demand as it rises in price than it is about its actual value, if value = quality.

Right, this is true.

And I would say that is more or less what I said, though if I could say it again, I would move the word perceived to say that that higher education has traditionally been a Veblen good, the more the pay, the better the perceived value.  Perceived value being key to demand.

Warren might have a different take on colleges and universities which have traditionally been perceived as a Veblen good.  That is, the more you pay, the better the value.

It is interesting to see North Park tuition hovering in the $39,000 range.

I remember 20 years ago when the standard sticker price for moderately selective to selective liberal arts colleges was in the $19,000-23,000 range, North Park made national headlines with by slashing tuition rates.

[Gregory Sager]

I, and a number of other people affiliated with North Park, predicted that reversion creep would take place. The new WYSIWYG approach got North Park a lot of good publicity when it was first announced ... and then, slowly but surely, scholarships and other new sources of financial aid got added back into the mix to address demand, and that added to the ongoing steady rise in the school's undergraduate tuition rate that reflects what has been a universal constant in American higher education over the past twenty years.