N.J. college says it may shut down if it doesn’t get financial help
The college needs to merge with another school or find 'major philanthropic donors,' officials say in an unusual plea for help.
Bloomfield College Having Financial Trouble
- Thread starter HeavenUniv.
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Unfortunately, there are going to be more colleges like this. The pandemic was a big blow for many that were on the border of insolvency. A former law school colleague of mine became president some years ago of Mills College, a women's college in Oakland, California. She and the rest of the administration fought to keep the college in existence. But it's now had to affiliate with Northeastern University (three thousand miles way and culturally totally different) to stay alive in some form. Again, I think the pandemic was the crowning blow.N.J. college says it may shut down if it doesn’t get financial help
The college needs to merge with another school or find 'major philanthropic donors,' officials say in an unusual plea for help.www.nj.com
The long term demographic declines of college aged people was the background. Basically the number peaked about 2010 and absent some extreme changes we are never going to see so many college seekers for the foreseeable future.
Shocks like the 2008 economic crash and the current Pandemic only hasten what was already in motion.
Some of the higher ed capacity built post WWII will become excess. The smaller outfits are already running out of reasons to be.
Inside Higher Ed
National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators
Shocks like the 2008 economic crash and the current Pandemic only hasten what was already in motion.
Some of the higher ed capacity built post WWII will become excess. The smaller outfits are already running out of reasons to be.
Inside Higher Ed
The Number of Colleges Continues to Shrink
National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators
Demographic Changes and Pandemic Fallout Could Alter Higher Ed Enrollment Trends
I hope the state doesn’t step in and create yet another state college to give some buddies high paying jobs. Just have it be a satellite campus for Kean or Montclair State, just a bit bigger than we have in Mays Landing, Lincroft, etc.
The same demographic trends you describe so well are problems for law schools too, especially because law no longer seems as attractive a profession as it once was. The only thing saving law schools is that they are relatively cheap to run (e.g. no labs, and many classes ca be large.) But I expect some private -- and maybe even public-- law schools will go out of existence.
Some of this depends on what part of the country you are in. In the South and parts of the West, the schools are exploding enrollment wise. They can’t build the buildings and dorms fast enough. UCF is the obvious example, but there are plenty of others.
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Outside the top 100 there is no need UNLESS they develop a way to feed people into jobs that are desperately needed but not great pay (public defenders, family and wills lawyers in isolated areas, among a few others). CUNY for example steers grads into public service. But some of these other schools charge crazy tuition that will be very tough to ever pay back.
NJ actually has a shortage of college places relative to the population. So they *could* conceivably give it a good use, but not sure. Honestly a way to probably make money would be to have an isolated college with great facilities that accepts a lot of people but would be fun on the weekend. Silly things, but based on OOS schools these same students go to, it would probably draw people.
Maybe things have changed -- I hope so -- but the last I heard CUNY was having trouble getting its graduates to do the most basic thing they need to do: pass the bar. Believe it or not, I had a colleague (a former Yale professor!) who thought it didn't matter what the bar pass rate was because, he said the bar exam is so flawed. It may be, but if a grad can't pass it, then the school has failed. \
What CUNY has going for it is that it is inexpensive. Rutgers Law emphasizes the same thing about it, although its tuition is almost three times as great. That lets you know that CUNY is *really* inexpensive.
I think the chances of creating a new free standing state college for NJ passed when no one stepped up to create Jersey Shore State (or something like that) at what was Fort Monmouth. Monmouth/Ocean counties are the largest by population section of the State, and growing faster than most of the state, without a public four year college.
Not saying we really needed one - but that would have been the best option if so inclined.
Yes, The Shore should have a Public four year university. Fort Monmouth makes so much sense.
I sympathize, but NJ does such a poor job of support the public universities and colleges it has: having another one would make things worse.
It is insane that states like West Virginia, Mississippi, the Dakotas, etc. support their schools more. And can we please merge the Rutgers Campus in Newark with NJIT. They are across the street from each other !
Just keep in mind that merging two institutions, across the street or not, is a tremendous enterprise, as the merger with the UMD showed. Students at each school can cross-register at the other; is it really necessary to do much more than that?
Remember though a lot of that growth is driven by
1) Lakewood- mostly religious population that shuns public schools
2) Retirees/People that don't live there year round
3) Heavy Shop Rite line/pay a lot of OOS schools population in some towns
And a lot of locals are happy to foot a Monmouth bill as well.
From what I see, the default New Jersey School public college for Monmouth/Ocean kids that can’t get into Rutgers or TCNJ is Rowan. They are pouring into that school.
I wouldn't be surprised. Rowan now has over 15,000 undergraduates. The school has come a long way from the days when it was Glassboro State, and known only as the site of a summit between President Johnson and Soviet premier Alexis Kosygin in 1967.
And this is a positive thing. There should be another "fun" school for kids in NJ who don't get into RU and TCNJ.
Think about it- we have a larger population than VA which has UVA, VT, JMU, VCU, W&M, etc
It would be fun to have another Division 1-A school in state. Those rivalries are great. Still think at some point Rowan goes up to 1-AA.
LOL OK well I'm not going that far. I don't mind RU being the only game in town on that score.
Believe it or not, their colors are brown and gold. To quote the Rowan athletic site, "The colors were derived from the Brown-eyed Susans that grew wild in the orchard which was part of the original Whitney estate where the campus is now situated."
How about Mule Skinners? Or Blueberry Pickers? Or Cranberry Crusaders? Or Bog Iron Bullies? Or Sand Miners? Or Glass Blowers…
All good points.
Is Monmouth County the only one in New Jersey to have a county college without the name in the title. Even growing up there I found that odd.
I was privy to their Master Plan a few years ago and it called for a 25K seat stadium.
My suggestion for that was two fold...
- Get rid of the brown and yellow color scheme as it looks like baby poop. Switch the brown to maroon.
- Change "Profs" to rams. The alliteration alone (along with new color combo) works so much better: Rowan Rams with the LA Rams style helmet. Maroon with the yellow ram horns.
Rowan Rams would be good, although Fordham and Rhode Island are among the colleges that also use that nickname. https://www.ranker.com/list/ram-mascot-school-list/reference
See how easy it flows right off your tongue when you say it...Rowan Rams.
It works.
Was the 25k stadium in tandem w their bid to get the Union of the MLS?
If they got that stadium, we’re they planning on moving upto FBS or FCS?
Has that plan been scraped?
I don’t think it had anything to do with the Union.
And at 25K I think you can be FBS, so maybe that was the plan?
Then again, NJ is the only state that doesn't have its state name in its main public university (I don't count the "The State University of New Jersey" after Rutgers as having the state name in the university name).
There is a story -- I don't know if it's true or not -- that when the NJ legislature was making Rutgers the state university, the suggestion was made that the school should be renamed after New Jersey. A legislator countered by saying it would be better to rename the state Rutgers!
Seriously, the fact that Rutgers has its traditional name helps its reputation far from New Jersey, where people think it must be some kind of elite Ivy League type school.
While I would like to see New Jersey in one end zone and one end of the basketball court like we used to have, the name can be overcome in getting New Jerseyans to view the school as theirs. See Clemson and Auburn
Purdue is another example. But remember that in all these states there is a state university named for the state. We don't have that here. I'm not sure if that makes it harder or easier for New Jerseyans to regard Rutgers as theirs.
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Perhaps it is simply the case of not having a flagship public named directly for the state. I suppose the best New Jersey can do on that front is tCNJ and NJIT, but neither really assumes the flagship mantle. Yet I'm not sure how much people across the state embrace either of those institutions relative to Rutgers. Would they be more likely to do so if one of them was perceived as a flagship type institution?
