The Future of Cities

[Not A Serious Person]

MU has a  detailed interactive visualization of its enrollment data back to 2005. You can slice and dice the data in an endless number of ways.

https://www.marquette.edu/institutional-research-analysis/interactive-reports/enrollment-dash.php

Interesting data from MU's Interactive

I looked only at undergrads.

MU has "lost" about 1,000 since 2019, its pre-COVID peak
(The measure is "Full-Time Equivalent")

           Total                    Change From
Term'   Undergraduate   Peak Yr (2019)
Fall 2005   7,687                -602
Fall 2006   7,729                -559
Fall 2007   7,659                -629
Fall 2008   7,755                -534
Fall 2009   7,822                -466
Fall 2010   7,848                -441
Fall 2011   8,128                -160
Fall 2012   8,077                -211
Fall 2013   8,152               -136
Fall 2014   8,189               -100
Fall 2015   8,113               -176
Fall 2016   8,062               -226
Fall 2017   8,129               -159
Fall 2018   8,226                 -63
Fall 2019   8,288                    0
Fall 2020   7,818               -470
Fall 2021   7,481               -808
Fall 2022   7,299               -990 (-11.94%)

Where did they lose these 990 students?

Change from 2019 to 2022 (number and %) and 2022 term size.

By College
Arts and Sciences -200 (-8.44%) 2,172
Business Admin   -158 (-9.94%) 1,428
Communications   -169 (-19.48%) 697
Engineering          -306 (-24.49%) 942
Nursing                +57  (+9.49%) 661
Health Sciences    -143 (-10.84%) 1,177
Education             -72   (-24.49%) 221

By Family History
First Generation      -179 (-9.81%) 1,645
Not First Generation   -811 (-12.54%) 5,654

By Gender
Female  -432 (-9.56%) 4,085
Male      -558 (-14.79%) 3,214
(note that the 2022 term is 55% Female and 44% Male)

By Region
Wisconsin             -33 (-1.28%) 2,552 (35% of 2022 term)
Illinois                 -565 (-16.68%) 2,823 (39% of 2022 term)
Other Midwest      -165 (-16.30%) 847 (12% of 2022 term)
Other US              -133 (-12.46%) 934 (13% of 2022 term)
Outside US           -94    (-39.63%) 143 (2% of 2022 term)

By Race
White                     -768 (-13.53%) 4,908 (67% of 2022 term)
Students of Color    -146 (-6.28%) 2,179 (30% of 2022 term)
International          -76 (-26.33%) 2212 (3% of 2022 term)

------------------------------------------

What do I see in this data?

MU has lost about 12% of its enrollment since 2019

Regarding college, good to see nursing has increased. Very surprised that engineering is down so much. Do not expect this from STEM. Can anyone add color here?

No surprise or comment about family history change

Also no surprise or comment about gender change

Region tells a big story ... MU has lost a ton of students from Illinois. This is not only not surprising to me, but the reason I started this thread.  As much as you like to argue with me, Illinois and the Chicago area are in deep trouble. People are fleeing (think large Detroit or St. Louis). And since it is the largest region that MU draws students from, MU is feeling it.

International and outside the US are down a lot. But it is small and can be explained by the US COVID restriction from 2020 to early this year (unreasonable restrictions... ask Novak Djokovic).

No surprise or comment about race change


One encouraging sign

The 2022 Freshman class bounced back to 2,080, only down -171 (7.61%) from its pre-could peak of 2018 (2,251). I hope this continues.

What is the solution? As explained in the early pages, MU needs to transcend the trouble of its region and become a national university. Think Washington University in St. Louis.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

In the last 10 years or so, WIU has seen its student population decline by more than 5,000 students, going from around 13,500 in 2006 to 7,643 students last fall.

What a weird way to phrase that. Why say "10 years or so" when you could say 16? Why say around 13,500 for 2006 when you list the actual 2022 numbers?

Also, if this decline started in 2006, I think Western Illinois may have pre-existing issues. I am also not certain that Western Illinois is comparable to Marquette.

[Not A Serious Person]

What a weird way to phrase that. Why say "10 years or so" when you could say 16? Why say around 13,500 for 2006 when you list the actual 2022 numbers?

Also, if this decline started in 2006, I think Western Illinois may have pre-existing issues. I am also not certain that Western Illinois is comparable to Marquette.

Only comparable to MU in that both WIU and MU draw big from Illinois and the, especially, the Chicago Area. In both cases, as I detailed two posts above about MU, enrollment in schools that depend on getting students from these areas are seeing big declines. Also, at the beginning of this thread, I posted that Depaul was also seeing big declines in enrollment.

After that MU and WIU are not comparable.

[warriorchick]

What a weird way to phrase that. Why say "10 years or so" when you could say 16? Why say around 13,500 for 2006 when you list the actual 2022 numbers?

Also, if this decline started in 2006, I think Western Illinois may have pre-existing issues. I am also not certain that Western Illinois is comparable to Marquette.

There is literally no good reason for any student to go to Western Illinois.  Its academic reputation is mediocre at best, it has no noteworthy programs of study, it's located dead center in the least densely populated area of the state, and most decent-sized metropolitan areas in Illinois are closer to some other state university.

Out of all my friends and acquaintances in Illinois (including all of my kids' friends from high school), I only know one kid who went there, and that was because it was the only school that offered him a football scholarship.

[dgies9156]

There is literally no good reason for any student to go to Western Illinois.  Its academic reputation is mediocre at best, it has no noteworthy programs of study, it's located dead center in the least densely populated area of the state, and most decent-sized metropolitan areas in Illinois are closer to some other state university.

Out of all my friends and acquaintances in Illinois (including all of my kids' friends from high school), I only know one kid who went there, and that was because it was the only school that offered him a football scholarship.

Sister Chick:

First of all, to compare Marquette to Western Illinois is ridiculous. Marquette is a Top 100 National University. WIU is a regional university that serves the needs of Western and West Central Illinois. It's like comparing a bike to a BMW. They're both transportation but that's as far as it goes.

Second, Illinois' "directionals" are regional campuses designed to serve specific regions of Illinois. Western serves the far expanses of western Illinois, roughly from Galena to Quincy and east to Peoria. The biggest cities in the area are Peoria and the Quad Cities, from which it gets its major draw. It's an important driver to the region's economy, just as UW Platteville or UW Eau Claire are to theirs's. Thousands of people may not be able to go to college were it not for Western as well as its sister colleges in Illinois. To its credit, Western has taken over the old Black Hawk College and created a satellite campus in Moline.

My first job out of Marquette was in the Quad Cities and Western Illinois University was an important part of the region we lived in. 

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Interesting data from MU's Interactive

This was a lot of words with you missing the very obvious pink elephant. Marquette reached it's peak in 2019. Then a global pandemic happened. The first class after the global pandemic was one of the largest in history. And this incoming class (which wasn't available in this dataset) is almost as large. So it's already recovering. Also in the incoming freshman class, enrollment increased in Illinois.

What is the solution? As explained in the early pages, MU needs to transcend the trouble of its region and become a national university. Think Washington University in St. Louis.

Marquette is already a national university. It is not Washington University and will never be Washington University. That's not to say that there won't be demographic challenges in the future (because there are) but they aren't the level doom and gloom (for Marquette) that you are painting it to be. It is doom and gloom for the Cardinal Stritches, Mount Mary's, Concordias, etc. of the world. Schools are Marquette's level and above will be fine. They even have the opportunity to increase their standing with the right strategy. I think Marquette's focus on programs that have a high future demand such as nursing, PT, biomed, etc. is a sound strategy.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

This was a lot of words with you missing the very obvious pink elephant. Marquette reached it's peak in 2019. Then a global pandemic happened. The first class after the global pandemic was one of the largest in history. And this incoming class (which wasn't available in this dataset) is almost as large. So it's already recovering. Also in the incoming freshman class, enrollment increased in Illinois.

Marquette is already a national university. It is not Washington University and will never be Washington University. That's not to say that there won't be demographic challenges in the future (because there are) but they aren't the level doom and gloom (for Marquette) that you are painting it to be. It is doom and gloom for the Cardinal Stritches, Mount Mary's, Concordias, etc. of the world. Schools are Marquette's level and above will be fine. They even have the opportunity to increase their standing with the right strategy. I think Marquette's focus on programs that have a high future demand such as nursing, PT, biomed, etc. is a sound strategy.

Exactly. Comparing MU’s situation (private, national university smack dag in the middle of a city) with WIU’s (rural, regional public) is, to put it lightly, an incredible stretch.

[Not A Serious Person]

Exactly. Comparing MU’s situation (private, national university smack dag in the middle of a city) with WIU’s (rural, regional public) is, to put it lightly, an incredible stretch.

Actually I did not compare MU to WIU. It was highlighted to note an extreme example of a school that rely on students from Illinois. Such schools are seeing larger declines than other geographic areas or factors. That is all.

The school I did compare MU against much earlier in this thread was Depaul. It has the same issues as MU but worse, as it has an even higher reliance on the Chicago area.

Again it comes back to a reality that is factual but controversial, the population of Chicago area is shrinking and schools like MU that rely on this area for students have challenges. That is a nice way for saying the will rely more on nursing and biomed, as TAMU noted, but layoffs and program closures in communications and Arts are coming.

Lastly, the secular movement of urban society will also present a challenge.

I wonder if the most progressive voices here would have picked MU if the we're 15 or 16 today. 

To them Gesu is a more symbol of oppression and shame than in previous decades.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

Actually I did not compare MU to WIU. It was highlighted to note an extreme example of a school that rely on students from Illinois. Such schools are seeing larger declines than other geographic areas or factors. That is all.

The school I did compare MU against much earlier in this thread was Depaul. It has the same issues as MU but worse, as it has an even higher reliance on the Chicago area.

Again it comes back to a reality that is factual but controversial, the population of Chicago area is shrinking and schools like MU that rely on this area for students have challenges. That is a nice way for saying the will rely more on nursing and biomed, as TAMU noted, but layoffs and program closures in communications and Arts are coming.

Lastly, the secular movement of urban society will also present a challenge.

I wonder if the most progressive voices here would have picked MU if the we're 15 or 16 today. 

To them Gesu is a more symbol of oppression and shame than in previous decades.

Oh look.  Another strawman introduced when everyone calls your WIU comparison ridiculous. Shocking!

Anyway, I'm progressive, non-Catholic and would choose Marquette again in a heartbeat. One of my children went there. He's told his wife (not a MU alum and extremely progressive) that their kids should go their too. Oh and they live in Chicagoland and are not planning on leaving anytime soon.

So maybe stop the victimization?

[lawdog77]

Oh look.  Another strawman introduced when everyone calls your WIU comparison ridiculous. Shocking!

Anyway, I'm progressive, non-Catholic and would choose Marquette again in a heartbeat. One of my children went there. He's told his wife (not a MU alum and extremely progressive) that their kids should go their too. Oh and they live in Chicagoland and are not planning on leaving anytime soon.

So maybe stop the victimization?

But they don't live in Chicago proper? You proved Heisey right.

[Jay Bee]

He's told his wife (not a MU alum and extremely progressive) that their kids should go their too.

there*

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

there*

Dammit. Got the first one right but not the second.

[MU82]

This was a lot of words with you missing the very obvious pink elephant. Marquette reached it's peak in 2019. Then a global pandemic happened. The first class after the global pandemic was one of the largest in history. And this incoming class (which wasn't available in this dataset) is almost as large. So it's already recovering. Also in the incoming freshman class, enrollment increased in Illinois.

Thanks for your insights (given what you do for a living), and for providing actual facts.

Discounting the depths of the pandemic -- which wrought havoc on college enrollment at just about every university everywhere -- Marquette's last three non-pandemic incoming classes (2019, 2022, 2023) were/are among the best in school history.

This doesn't mean the future's guaranteed to be all seashells and balloons, or that Marquette's movers and shakers should avoid confronting serious issues that could (and probably will) affect the school's future. It just means that on the scale of Doomed to Darn Good, things at MU are closer to Darn Good than Doomed.

It's nice to be an alum of a university that's flourishing ... especially now that our basketball team is back on the national radar!

[Jay Bee]

^^^ per your Prez, the pandemic was still a national emergency until a couple of months ago

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Actually I did not compare MU to WIU. It was highlighted to note an extreme example of a school that rely on students from Illinois. Such schools are seeing larger declines than other geographic areas or factors. That is all.

I understand that both schools rely heavily on the Chicago metro area for enrollment and that's the connection you are trying to make. But the article you quoted indicated that WIU's decline started in 2006. That's pre-pandemic, pre-2008 recession, and I don't think there's any data to suggest that the Chicago metro area was shrinking at that time (or in the years following). I think WIU has some other pre-existing issues leading to its decline that you aren't giving proper credit to.

The school I did compare MU against much earlier in this thread was Depaul. It has the same issues as MU but worse, as it has an even higher reliance on the Chicago area.

I've been in and out of this thread and missed this part of the discussion so I would need to research more to understand what's going on with DePaul. I would hazard a guess that DePaul is likely being hit harder because they are a statistical outlier in size for a private religious university. IIRC, they were and I believe still are the largest in the world in that category. Larger enrollment is going to result in larger hits to enrollment.

Again it comes back to a reality that is factual but controversial, the population of Chicago area is shrinking and schools like MU that rely on this area for students have challenges. That is a nice way for saying the will rely more on nursing and biomed, as TAMU noted, but layoffs and program closures in communications and Arts are coming.

I don't believe your assertion that the Chicago area is shrinking is factual. The city population is shrinking but the metro area is still growing (at a slower rate than other metro areas). You can bring up change of address forms as much as you like but that's not a metric the captures overall growth in a metro area. Now what you are conflating is that there will be a demographic shift specifically in high school graduates likely to attend college in the Midwest. That is expected to hit in 2026 (18 years after the 2008 recession). That will impact universities including Marquette...but it's the smaller, less prestigious, private universities that are going to bear the brunt of the pain. We will see more Cardinal Stritches closing in the next dozen years or so.

Lastly, the secular movement of urban society will also present a challenge.

I wonder if the most progressive voices here would have picked MU if the we're 15 or 16 today. 

To them Gesu is a more symbol of oppression and shame than in previous decades.

I think you are broad brushing a bit here, but you are right that the general secularization of the country will turn off some perspective students from Marquette. Personally, I think the amount will be negligible and easily replaced. Marquette is in the top 5% of universities in this country. As long as that doesn't change, I think there will always be demand. But that doesn't mean that the university shouldn't continue to improve and prepare for future challenges.

[GOO]

Comparing Western makes little  sense to me. Didn’t UIC student population increase over the years?  Would some Chicago kids decide to go to UIC instead of Western if UIC is growing? 

I’d think the overall Illinois system would have to be studied and not just western to draw broad conclusions..?

For Marquette, I am encouraged. They have upped their scholarship game a lot recently. That is the number one trend I want to see exponentially continue in that direction. Focus on net cost more than new buildings. Be competitive with Madison and Illinois. Scholarships, scholarships, scholarships.

[GOO]

Also, as pointed out Western is in the middle of nowhere. Don’t kids want bigger cities?  That’s my impression. Especially those with good economic futures? 

Haven’t small towns and rural areas declined in population, a trend that would be in place during 2006 to now? Certainly 2006 to 2020? I’m not talking suburban rural locations (exurbs?), I mean Western Illinois Univ rural farm country?

Hasn’t DePaul failed on the net cost side. That is my impression versus Marquette.

[RJax55]

TAMU, I mentioned this earlier in this mess of a thread, but DePaul's budget issue at the moment is due to falling graduate-level enrollment.

[warriorchick]

Sister Chick:

First of all, to compare Marquette to Western Illinois is ridiculous. Marquette is a Top 100 National University. WIU is a regional university that serves the needs of Western and West Central Illinois. It's like comparing a bike to a BMW. They're both transportation but that's as far as it goes.

Second, Illinois' "directionals" are regional campuses designed to serve specific regions of Illinois. Western serves the far expanses of western Illinois, roughly from Galena to Quincy and east to Peoria. The biggest cities in the area are Peoria and the Quad Cities, from which it gets its major draw. It's an important driver to the region's economy, just as UW Platteville or UW Eau Claire are to theirs's. Thousands of people may not be able to go to college were it not for Western as well as its sister colleges in Illinois. To its credit, Western has taken over the old Black Hawk College and created a satellite campus in Moline.

My first job out of Marquette was in the Quad Cities and Western Illinois University was an important part of the region we lived in.

If it is so important, why has their enrollment dropped by 40‰?

A big state school should have a better reason to exist other than to be the place to go if you are from Rock Island and didn't get into U of I.

[Hards Alumni]

JP Morgan Asset Management just published a 70-page report on the implications of the shutdown/restart of the economy around COVID in 2020.

In short, this event will probably be the biggest economic event the economy will have faced in our lifetime.

https://am.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-am-aem/global/en/insights/portfolio-insights/siag-post-covid-world-final.pdf#page=6

Chapter 6 - The urban commuter economy

COVID reshaped the daily lives of millions of workers overnight and in the process shattered a commuter ecosystem that had served major urban cores for decades. While the pieces are being put back together, the system remains fragile. Costly, capital-intensive mass transit systems have been starved of the fare revenue needed to maintain service, potentially rolling those costs up a level to the municipal or state fiscal authorities.

State and municipal entities, although able to weather the storm of COVID fairly well, can ill afford to shoulder the burden of money-losing mass transit systems. The lagged effect of property tax declines may add
pressure to cut costs and services, raising the specter of a downward spiral in economic activity, further population loss and declining property values. We can take some hope from the fact that previous downturns
have proven the resiliency of the urban model, but caution is warranted. The need for cities to serve as a hub of large office populations is being questioned as never before.

Chapter 7 - Work and home life after the Pandemic

In the coming years, employers and employees will renegotiate how we live and work across the physical and virtual worlds. The need to commute to an office, for generations accepted as a given, is now subject to the question, How much do we really need commutes, or offices? It will be impossible to “unring the bell” and return to pre-COVID work patterns as if nothing has changed.

For the costly and capital-intensive sectors of the economy that served the pre-COVID workforce, the prospects are challenging – particularly mass transit systems and marginal urban offices. Supply exceeds demand and may for quite a while as prices slowly adjust and assets are repurposed to the extent possible.

On the flip side, there is too little logistics infrastructure to serve the evolving e-commerce marketplace and too little residential real estate to serve the population of young families. In these sectors, favorable supply and demand characteristics will deliver strong returns on capital over the long term.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

So if we refrain from the MUscoop tactic of way over ANALysing the precise wording of every post, causing everyone to get lost in the trees constantly, and instead look at what the message being conveyed is, dgies is correct.

10, 20, or 30 years from now, there will be a place with many people called "Milwaukee" or "Chicago." The real question is, why do people choose to live there? If the answer is no longer to be close to an office, this means a tectonic change for the city and the lifestyle of living in a city. And if this is the case, what becomes of the large buildings in the city center? See my post above; the stock market already wiped out the last 27 years of office real estate gains as it fears the true value of those buildings.

Restated, cities have to remake themselves. And they will. But first, we have to "blank slate" everything we know about a city and re-think its purpose and goals. In other words, this entire debate is about whether this is still true. At the very least, it can no longer just be said, as done here, as if it is stating a fact. We don't know if it is a fact anymore.

The JP Morgan report has made it clear we will not beat people with a stick to return to a pre-covid world. So, I'm afraid that's not right either.

Finally, we have to stop with the obvious incorrect statement that leads to wildly incorrect worldviews.

Milwaukee's population peaked with the 1960 census at 741,324. The Census Bureau puts Milwaukee's 2022 population at 563,305, a decline of 26%
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/milwaukeecitywisconsin

Chicago's population peaked with the 1950 census at 3,620,962. The Census Bureau puts Chicago's 2022 population at 2,665,039, a decline of 28%
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/chicagocityillinois

I assume Hards is not over 70, so this statement that cities continue to grow stopped being the case before he was born, and repeating this falsehood over and over and over will not make it true.

As noted in previous posts, if he means the metropolitan areas, they also stopped growing in the last five years, largely driven by the tectonic changes caused by COVID. JP Morgan's report clearly states we are not returning to all those big buildings in the city centers like we did pre-pandemic. So, if you don't have to go to that building anymore, do you really want to live on the commuter lines in the metropolitan area?

Do not underestimate what shutting down and restarting the global economy did in 2020. It changed the trajectory of everyone's lives.

lmao

[Hards Alumni]

I'll bite.

Sultan, 🐷🐷, Rico. Pakuni, Hards, et al are all bigger experts on, well, everything.  Especially when compared to industry experts,  analysts, and other smart people.

Do you need me to go through Jamie Dimon's history where is famously wrong on a lot of things?

Because that would be very easy.  I'd probably miss a lot of his bad takes, but he's a clown.

[Hards Alumni]

What a weird way to phrase that. Why say "10 years or so" when you could say 16? Why say around 13,500 for 2006 when you list the actual 2022 numbers?

Also, if this decline started in 2006, I think Western Illinois may have pre-existing issues. I am also not certain that Western Illinois is comparable to Marquette.

He's a simple man that thinks he can get away with simple ideas around people who love to call BS.

It's just who he is.

[Not A Serious Person]

He's a simple man that thinks he can get away with simple ideas around people who love to call BS.

It's just who he is.

He was referring to what the article said, not what I wrote.

[JWags85]

Do you need me to go through Jamie Dimon's history where is famously wrong on a lot of things?

Because that would be very easy.  I'd probably miss a lot of his bad takes, but he's a clown.

Hold on Heisy is a clown?  Or Dimon?  Cause if its the latter, that is a WILD take.

[ZiggysFryBoy]

Hold on Heisy is a clown?  Or Dimon?  Cause if its the latter, that is a WILD take.

Hoke knows more than Jamie.