Oso planning to go pro
Interesting. Can you elaborate more on these tactics Forgetful?
A couple of observations worthy of consideration:2) With the exception of perhaps two dozen or so institutions, you go to college where you want to work and live someday. If you go to Marquette, your best chance of being noticed will be in Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Northern Indiana and maybe Iowa. If you want to live in these states for a good part of your life, Marquette is a great place and its graduates are distinguished. But in case you haven't noticed, the country is growing but the Great Lakes states are not. That's a problem for Marquette when it comes placing grads -- and people know it. The hot growth cities in the eastern United States are Charlotte, Nashville, Raleigh-Durham and Orlando. Maybe Washington, DC. In these cities, Marquette is about as well known as University of Minnesota-Duluth. Or Grinnell College.3) Basketball helps. To the extent that the University of Notre Dame is a national university, it's because of its football program. In the 1970s, Marquette was well-known nationally because of our outstanding basketball program. When we fell off the radar in basketball, so we also did in attracting interest nationally. We reverted somewhat to being a Wisconsin/Illinois college. If we want a large freshman class, it requires visibility and interest. I question whether we have this right now. This is why Wojo is so important to our school.
I don’t doubt that the declining enrollment at Marquette is more than just Covid. That said, it would be interesting to see the two-year decreases at comparable universities, to gauge the magnitude of the problem.
Some institutions turned their focus to more local students, and expanded their range for these students in terms of test scores. By doing so they were able to capitalize on local students, who were close test scores wise, that would prefer to stay near home given the situation in COVID. Students that may have not thought they could be admitted otherwise. In some cases, that simultaneously allowed Universities to expand diversity.
A couple of observations worthy of consideration:1) Different things are expected out of an education today then the years when I was at MU. At the time, Marquette was proud of turning our well-educated persons who were liberally educated. Today, it's about finding a job. Period. Engineering, Law, Business, Health Sciences do well. Liberal Arts less so. Schools with demonstrated placement records do well. Those that don't suffer. Marquette is in the middle on this one.2) With the exception of perhaps two dozen or so institutions, you go to college where you want to work and live someday. If you go to Marquette, your best chance of being noticed will be in Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Northern Indiana and maybe Iowa. If you want to live in these states for a good part of your life, Marquette is a great place and its graduates are distinguished. But in case you haven't noticed, the country is growing but the Great Lakes states are not. That's a problem for Marquette when it comes placing grads -- and people know it. The hot growth cities in the eastern United States are Charlotte, Nashville, Raleigh-Durham and Orlando. Maybe Washington, DC. In these cities, Marquette is about as well known as University of Minnesota-Duluth. Or Grinnell College.3) Basketball helps. To the extent that the University of Notre Dame is a national university, it's because of its football program. In the 1970s, Marquette was well-known nationally because of our outstanding basketball program. When we fell off the radar in basketball, so we also did in attracting interest nationally. We reverted somewhat to being a Wisconsin/Illinois college. If we want a large freshman class, it requires visibility and interest. I question whether we have this right now. This is why Wojo is so important to our school.4) MU's costs are out of line with value. OK, I get why someone would pay $70,000-plus annually to go to Harvard, all-in. I don't want to sound elitist, but one probably will recoup the cost over time due to the name value of a Harvard degree. Same for Yale, Stanford, Columbia etc. Marquette isn't in that league and yet our costs are approaching it. Imagine if you wanted to live in Nashville. Would you be better off paying for Marquette or the University of Tennessee? Years ago, when I was evaluating colleges, the answer was NOT orange and white, even though UT was a hell of a lot cheaper than MU. I think Marquette is a better school for many people, but if you can get in-state rates at UT, the equation evens out. Same for Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa or Indiana.5) Costs Rose. OK, I get that the cost of educating today is different than years ago. And expectations are higher. But it's time to take a hard look at enrollment, what students want and what they're willing to pay for. Don't know enough to know about Marquette's curriculum today, but I'm guess there's a lot of fat. Time for a hard look -- a zero based budgeting approach.6) Bad Press. Marquette has received some very bad press in the last decade or so. From basketball players whose foibles ended up on Page 1 of the Chicago Tribune, to a Dean Candidate who was at odds with Catholic teaching to reverence for certain revolutionaries with a very checkered past, Marquette has done an occasionally nice job of alienating the folks most likely to give to increase the endowment. You're always going to have malcontents who won't give for a perceived slight, but some of the high-profile incidents have proven hard for some to swallow.Long before Covid-19 hit, a Marquette development officer talked about demographic changes and how the university will have to deal with bigger enrollment fights. It's a lot like what happened after the Baby Boom finished passing through the University in the mid-1980s. The Millennials will be through in the next few years and it's my view Marquette has two options -- up its game on the enrollment and image side -- or cut the heck out of costs, programs and administration.
MU needs to embrace and promote its spot in the pecking order of universities and not try to be something they are not. There is a market for a middle-of-road, Midwestern, jesuit, non-research based, urban university. All catholic schools can't be Notre Dame, Georgetown, or BC, hey?
TAMUI do know, Newsie is right on you knowing ball.
I think MU aspires to be like Villanova. I don't think they aspire to be like one of the big 3
I don't think Marquette is aspiring to be those schools.
Good points except...Regarding #4, the average person isn't paying nearly $70,000. I think it was mentioned that Marquette's net tuition was $23,000. Add another $14,000 for room, board and fees, and the average student is paying $37,000. That is about $10,000 more a year than a Wisconsin resident pays to go to UW-Madison.#6 both happened around a decade ago. Not even a factor.
#6 had no effect. Neither story lasted more than a few days. The basketball incident didn't make it past Chicago media and was quickly out of public consciousness. If anything though, the debacle with the Dean and MU jettisoning her so quickly was more of a negative than hiring her. For your numbers, does that net tuition include federal loans for which students qualify?
Freshman enrollment has dropped more than 16 percent from last year at American colleges and universities — and by nearly a quarter at community colleges — as the threat of the coronavirus has disrupted the nation’s higher education system, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported Thursday.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/15/world/freshman-enrollment-drops-significantly-at-us-universities-and-community-colleges.html
Thanks, very interesting, but I will use it to mean that experience shows that a 25% unused capacity leads to serious financial problems, like bankruptcy. As in, unallocated overhead.BTW, love The George Washington University, great school. I did 21 hours of graduate school there, no degree, but very worthwhile and highly respected education/institution.
There is a list of schools that MU tries to aspire towards. They are publicly available.https://www.marquette.edu/strategic-planning/referents.php
I think Marquette's problem is that they had been planning for an enrollment increase, and had set their budget up to handle that. So while they may not be worse off compared to others, they are worse off compared to what they planned for.
And Nova isn’t even on it.