Kolek planning to go pro
It's not an old data set, but it's a crappy publication using data published by the disreputable Illinois Policy Institute (a far-right think tank). Illinois Policy Institute says they're using Census estimate data, but I can only find that number on the Census bureau website using their "vintage analysis" approach to population estimates which has been off by as much as 500,000 people in Illinois as recently as 2020.Did you know that the US Census Bureau has estimated Chicago & Illinois' population loss incredibly inaccurately every year thanks to those vintage estimates? Thankfully there are real counts every once in a while, and also the census bureau has been working to update their estimation methodology. It was interesting that the real census count in 2020 proved that Illinois grew by 250,000 instead of the census bureau estimates saying Illinois shrunk by 250,000 people. Here's an interesting article if you're interested - https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2023/3/31/23665433/census-bureau-illinois-population-estimates-raja-krishnamoorthi-column-rich-millerThe author of this piece in the Sun Times is Rich Miller. From his Wikipedia - Miller was a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times for 8 years before joining Crain's Chicago Business in 2014 as a columnist.[2] The Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois.Seems trustworthy?Compared to the article that Heisenberg shared written by "Editor" from the "Illinois Business Journal." The Illinois Business Journal seems to be run by Greg Hoskins (who owns 20+ small town papers in Southern Illinois), and has one editor, Melissa Crockett Meske. Melissa's credentials are that she's a communications strategist, "My bylines appear in publications throughout the United States including the Illinois Business Journal, Great Rivers & Routes Tourism Bureau (Southwestern Illinois) seasonal tourism guides, various RiverBend Growth Association publications including their annual Currents magazine." https://macmeske.com/It would be nice if Heisenberg could find good sources to back up their opinions on things. The crappy sources make it seem like the arguments are intellectually dishonest? Pretty weird, honestly.
The census bureau is lying; anyone listening to them is a Fox News hater.Instead, rely on a far-leftist- politician that says the census bureau is lying.That is a good argument you have!---But assuming it is correct. It would not be unique to Suburban Chicago; it will largely apply to the entire country. Everyone would see a bump higher, and nothing would change. Suburban Chicago continues to lose ground to everyone else, and anyone relying on Suburban Chicago, like a University looking for students, remains at a disadvantage.
Brother Dgies,All the things you have mentioned are dependent on #1 and the primary problem is we have the wrong vision and overall goals. It starts with early childhood education. I'm talking ages 2-5. We should have a national goal that learning to read before age 5 is mandatory or you can't enroll in kindergarten. I used to tutor kids ages 12-17 in both reading/writing and math in Chicago and DC. It's absolutely astounding that their skill levels are so behind. As far as I can tell nothing has changed. In lieu of this idea of free college what we should have is free or minimal cost early childhood education in our inner cities. It can be done with the right vision and right incentives to get high quality pre K teachers. Everything starts with learning how to read. We have failed our children and our entire educational system needs to be re-examined imo. Start with one simple but vital goal. For those that do not have special needs reading by age 5 has to be mandatory. The two most important things that can be done for young children is learning how to swim and learning how to read.
Let's agree that 2022 Suburban Chicago population growth has now sunk to zero (you showed a slight increase, around 0.15%, and I showed a slight decrease of -0.15%. Let's round it to zero). Over the same time, the US population grew by 0.38%Suburban Chicago's population has been ~2% larger since 2010. The US is ~9% larger over the same period. Schools that do not rely on suburban Chicago as a primary source of students are seeing applications grow faster than MU. This allows schools everywhere else to increase their standards for acceptance faster than MU.So, MU's standards will fall faster than everyone else. They will sink reputationally, and their ability to grow the university will also be impaired.Again, why do I care about this? Let's look at another similar school that also relies on Suburban Chicago for their primary source of students, Depaul.Their enrollment started sinking at least six years ago. For Depaul, this is not a problem decades into the future. It has already started. To assume MU can escape this same plight for decades is misplaced. For all we know, it has already started at MU.That is unless MU can transcend its geographic constraints and become a truly national university. Happy to hear an argument as to why this is happening or about to happen.It is short-sided to brush this problem off as it will largely occur after I die, so who cares. Responsible universities, and their trustees, care a great deal about long-term planning and need to deal with these problems now.I know Lovell cared. He told me as much at more than one luncheon I attended., He is fully aware of the population decline and the challenges it poses.
The census bureau is lying; anyone listening to them is a Fox News hater.
I dont disagree with most of your post, but putting learning to read and learning to swim at anywhere the same level is kind of wild, unless you live in a balmy climate and have a pool in your backyard. For a kid growing up in the Midwest or Northern climates where pool/swimming weather is 3 months a year at best, I think there are far more important/pressing developmental goals.
The Census Bureau would never provide incorrect data on Illinois' population, right?Illinois suffered significant undercounting during the 2020 census, leading to the mistaken conclusion that the state lost residents over the previous ten years — when in reality it added more than a quarter of a million people and swelled to its largest population ever.That’s the stunning revelation from a report the U.S. Census Bureau itself released on Thursday, admitting that its ten-year head counts were off in more than a dozen states.Illinois’ purported population loss has become a talking point for everyone from former residents justifying their departure to political candidates using it to bash incumbents for policies they say are prompting a stampede out of the state.https://chicago.suntimes.com/2022/5/19/23131741/illinois-2020-census-undercount-population-gain-pritzker-welch-democrats-republican-trumpThird graph feels particularly relevant in this thread
Man, you have brain rot
Learning to swim is very important, but drowning is pretty far down the list of causes of child deaths.https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmc2201761
If those "part time faculty" are headcount and not FTE, the graph is pretty meaningless.
If the black line keeps sinking, both bars are going down.And how many other universities that rely on Suburban Chicago for enrollment have this same kind of black line, or will shortly?
Yes, more left-wing politicians calling BS on professional statisticians because they don't like the answer.Good argument
Two things:The graph looks worse than it is due to scale.And it takes time to reduce full time faculty, due to tenure and due to further specialization at the graduate levels. Part time faculty are used as student population rises and falls.So the best thing to do would be to comparing student to faculty ratio by using the FTE of each.
Probably, but I do not think that the world is made up of statistics that agree with my view or the liars/Fox News Watchers.
#BadDataWhat you linked to isn’t about children. It’s about people ages 1 (excludes those under 1) through 19 (includes many adult deaths). An infant is a child. A 19 year old is not. Stop the lies!!!!
That was a nice response to an pretty boy remark by me. Good on you, sorry for losing my cool.The statistics you shared are provably incorrect, but I suppose it's up to you to ignore the evidence. Even if that evidence is the census bureau saying that they're going to update their methodology because of how big of a miss they had specifically in Chicago. Have a great weekend.
No problemBut I'll ask again, pretty much every state unhappy with the census is making the same argument. So if the Census' methodology is proven wrong, and everyone gets equally bumped higher, then nothing changes.Or, is there a case to make Chicagoland methodology was wrong, then say, NYC? NY/NYC is screaming even louder about the census numbers.
I'll add that we need to treat our teachers much better than we do and spend the money on them to encourage our best and brightest to become and REMAIN teaching. We don't do that.
Agree about the chart.Depaul's enrollment From the chart 2017 = 22,7692022 = 20,791Loss = 1,978 (8.7%)A major university showing five sequential years of enrollment decline now totaling almost 9% seems huge! Why?DePaul spokesperson Mary Hansen attributed it to "increased competition for students among universities and declining numbers of college-going students."https://www.axios.com/local/chicago/2022/06/13/illinois-undergraduate-enrollment-dropsSo, why does the highlighted part not matter to MU?
I've attended lunches with Lovell, and he talked at length about how MU needs to diversify away from suburban Chicago (Deerfield, Wilmette, Naperville, Homewood, Gurnee, Tinley Park, and Park Ridge).I've seen you participate in threads in this forum about the same need.Why does everyone think MU needs to diversify away from suburban Chicago? It is not because it is a bad place. It is because it is not growing. So, you are correct the number of applications from suburban Chicago is not going to zero ... ever (as you said, even if it falls one million tomorrow). But it is not growing. And for MU to maintain its academic and reputational standards, it needs a growing pool of applications to maintain its selectivity. That growing pool of applications will no longer come from the area that has supplied a growing pool of applications for many decades ... suburban Chicago. This is a problem. Not a problem tomorrow. But a real and significant long-term planning problem.
Glad to hear this is on Lovell's radar. Porky just wishes they would actually DO something about it. It seems as though they're just thinking about it. The debate about whether the greater Chicagoland area is growing or not should be irrelevant as it relates to MU.In Porky's view, geographic diversity is every bit as important....if not more important.....than racial and socio-economic diversity and a large university needs all three to truly thrive, so even if greater Chicagoland was projected to grow their overall population as well as their population of 18-22 year-olds by double digits for the next two decades, MU should still aggressively pursue geographic diversity if it wants to maintain is current position.Porky can only speak for the metro NYC area, and to a lesser extent the Northeast but to call MU's recruitment efforts here abysmal would be generous. And before anyone cites the even more ominous demographic cliff facing the Northeast, Porky fully acknowledges that the population of college age students is declining precipitously here as well, but there are still a hell of a lot more of them here. It's the most densely populated part of the country by far and that's not going change anytime soon. Porky has long suspected MU has eschewed more geographic diversity because that pursuit conflicts with MU's mission. They need to get over this. Yes, students that matriculate to MU from the coasts and south tend to come from wealthier families who can afford the increased cost of travel back and forth during breaks and summers. So what?????? Presumably these students' families qualify for significantly less aid and pay a higher percentage of sticker tuition. Wouldn't that help fund more aid for the less fortunate? What is Porky missing?
At the risk of starting a war, we do treat our teachers well. Maybe in some rural and poor districts there are problems, but overall, no chance!In Chicago, for example, the state and city spend an average of $30,000 per pupil on education. The state average is $15,000. Where do you think most of that goes? There is something materially wrong when we spend this kind of money on schools and our 11th graders cannot do basic math, read and write. It's only going to get worse now that the Teachers control City Hall. In my old District, Community 128 in Libertyville and Vernon Hills, our median teacher salary is well over $100,000 annually. And the benefits they receive, including low-cost healthcare, extreme pension benefits (assuming the fund is solvent) and a vacation that most of us would call "retirement" are huge. They scream about grading papers et al, but in a job like mine, working 12-16 hour days is not uncommon. And the pay is comparable. They did great work -- my children were living proof of it -- but they're NOT, repeat, NOT treated poorly.One of the major problems with urban education is we may be expecting too much from the schools. To be candid, my early childhood education was gained in the lap of my mother. Or sitting next to her as she read to me, and my brothers and sisters. My Dad did too and they both had expectations of us. They backed it with their effort and their sacrifice, both of which enabled four of their six children to attend and receive degrees from Marquette (the other two went to Catholic Universities in the Midwest). When we had problems, my Mom or Dad took us to get help. In one case, that meant dealing with ADHD by driving across Nashville to treatments and meetings twice a week. In other cases, it meant simply sitting with us as we went to the pool. Or taking us to the forest and letting us go into the woods and explore.The point is, when you have a child, a parent needs to take responsibility. The schools can and should be a partner in the effort but, to be candid, no one can expect a school to replace a parent. That doesn't mean we give up on struggling children with incompetent parents, but it means we get rid of a "if it feels good, do it" or "it's not in my plan" or "it's inconvenient" attitudes.