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The Cuts at WVU

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Re: The Cuts at WVU

#41

Post by cperciva »

codemac wrote: post #17
parl_match wrote: post #3

If their budget numbers are true, it demonstrates serious mismanagement.

EDIT: Others have commented that this is just that the # of students taking courses vs. the # of students in the major. The phrase "program enrollment" meant something different to me. This would make the 800k profit make sense. When I look at their actual numbers, his comments don't make sense: https://provost.wvu.edu/files/d/bf3ef02f-e90a-4e43-a316-d295... They somehow have 18000+ credit hours to their department i…

Students don't just take courses in their own program. What we have here is 61 students majoring in languages, but lots of students from elsewhere in the institution taking language courses. Possibly because of a foreign language requirement, possibly out of interest... but I'd bet that a lot of them just take language courses to get an easy A.

Re: The Cuts at WVU

#43

Post by CSMastermind »

sgustard wrote: post #27
ethbr1 wrote: post #11

For reference, here are all the proposed WVU cuts by dept (~7.25% total faculty reduction): https://provost.wvu.edu/files/d/da8e760e-d129-47c1-b06d-5fe9... More context: https://wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2023/08/11/wvu-announces-pr... and https://provost.wvu.edu/academic-transformation/academic-pro...

"For example, Mining Engineering has experienced a decline in enrollment, yet this area is critical to the state and the region, and there is unmet occupational demand. Also experiencing similar challenges is the Petroleum and Natural Gas program" Very interesting. The politicians of West Virginia want to prop up the oil and mining industries. Young people do not want careers that destroy the planet. So the solution…

No that's a dishonest framing.

What actually happened was:

1. WVU is running out of money

2. They hired a team to devise a way to fairly eliminate programs.

3. That team decided that student enrollment should be the key metric to drive program elimination, but recognized three exceptions.

4. Both World Language and Extractive Resource Engineering programs have declining enrollment, thus would be slated to be eliminated.

5. The extractive resource engineering programs qualify for one of three exceptions which was significance to the local region and economy.

6. Thus those majors will be combined/restructured and downsized rather than being outright eliminated.

It's also worth noting that while you can merge the Mining Engineering major with the P&NG Engineering major in a clean way since there is significant overlap in coursework it's unclear to me how you would merge the Chinese and the Russian programs into a single major. So even if they did qualify for an exception, I don't think you could use the same solution.

Re: The Cuts at WVU

#44

Post by agar »

Speaking as a parent, the state of higher education is shocking.

Costs of $300,000 for a 4-year degree ($75K/year for tuition, fees, and housing) is not just possible, it's essentially the norm for many schools that aren't even top-tier. Even state schools will run about $200,000, all-in. God forbid you have more than one child.

Universities tout their need-based financial aid, but the cut off is often far below the median salary in high cost of living areas. At that point the aid is "Congratulations, you qualify for student loans!"

It's great that more lower-income families can get a full scholarship, but the middle class has been priced out of everything but state schools and community college.

Re: The Cuts at WVU

#45

Post by cperciva »

SL61 wrote: post #38
codemac wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: Others have commented that this is just that the # of students taking courses vs. the # of students in the major. The phrase "program enrollment" meant something different to me. This would make the 800k profit make sense. When I look at their actual numbers, his comments don't make sense: https://provost.wvu.edu/files/d/bf3ef02f-e90a-4e43-a316-d295... They somehow have 18000+ credit hours to their department i…

The enrollment numbers are probably for majors, i.e. enrollment count of 5 for the French program means there are 5 students majoring in French. The vast majority of students taking French classes would be taking them for general education requirements (or whatever WVU calls that), or due to other degree programs requiring a language class, or as electives. At my alma mater, the Philosophy department had something li…

Yup. The same goes for mathematics programs around the world -- a relatively small number of Math majors, but the departments are kept afloat by teaching calculus courses to everyone going into other science and engineering programs.

Re: The Cuts at WVU

#46

Post by f23dsafdsa »

What do you think is easier? Cutting administrators and forcing a restructure of your university? Or cutting entire departments wholesale?

It's classic vertical versus horizontal scaling, just with people's life work.

Re: The Cuts at WVU

#47

Post by OfSanguineFire »

bee_rider wrote: post #18

> All of the foreign language and literature programs at the university are to be discontinued; the president of the university publicly stated that foreign-language classes will be replaced with online apps or remote classes at other universities. If a university is just offering online courses at other schools, it ought to be treated as if it doesn’t offer the subject at all. I dunno, is it crucial to teach languag…

Of course it is crucial for any university to teach languages. For fields like history or archaeology of various regions of the world, a lot (if not most) of the reading that one has to do will be in languages other than English. Any North American university library will have at least some scholarship in its stacks in a language other than English.

Also, in spite of the belief that language degrees are useless, they are an important first step, if not a prerequisite, towards 1) graduate studies in a field that draws on that language, and 2) various on-the-ground careers in the respective country. Lots of journalists based in and specializing in some region, started off with a degree in the language of that country, for example.

Re: The Cuts at WVU

#48

Post by kstrauser »

nemo44x wrote: post #31

As it turns out, middle and working class people finally figured out it isn’t worth paying $100k for book club. One of the mistaken beliefs of many Americans is that class isn’t a big thing here. And with this mistaken belief, millions have bought the lie that they too could do book club or art club and the associated lifestyle of young adult daycare and actually end up in a better place. Naive parents stood in front…

> If you’re middle class or less and not exceptionally academically able then the only acceptable outcome is you exit an affordable college with a useful degree. The other crap is for rich kids that can study botany

You roll your eyes at kids in “book clubs”, then use a freaking STEM program as your example. Botanists, the people studying plants so they can make healthier crops among other things, are your example of bad educational investments? I don’t think you understand the whole university system as well as you think you do.

Re: The Cuts at WVU

#49

Post by tssva »

deaddodo wrote: post #22
tssva wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It literally makes no sense to close a department that, after operational and administrative costs, is net positive while you are facing a budget crisis. If they think investment in another department will bring a higher ROI it makes sense.

It's profitable and requires little overhead. Just do both. That's like saying "I don't want a free PS5, because I think I'd play my Nintendo Switch more often".

They are in a budget crunch. They likely don't have money to do both.

Re: The Cuts at WVU

#50

Post by deaddodo »

tssva wrote: post #49
deaddodo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's profitable and requires little overhead. Just do both. That's like saying "I don't want a free PS5, because I think I'd play my Nintendo Switch more often".

They are in a budget crunch. They likely don't have money to do both.

They are in a budget crunch. So they should close one of the departments that pays for itself and others?

I'm having a hard time processing your logic here.

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