Syracuse University is a self-labeled “top-tier research institution“ located in, appropriately, Syracuse, NY. Its 2024-2025 enrollment data listed 15,265 full-time students and 1,023 part-timers, of whom 15,809 were seeking degrees or certificates.
Read more The Rocky Mountain PBS Chair wants Trump to be like Biden
That’s a big university, and one that’s going to get a lot smaller and fast. On June 11, Chancellor and President Michael J. Haynie told the faculty and staff that they no longer have sufficient enrollment to remain solvent. It’s only going to get worse because the number of high school graduates is going to continue to decline for at least the next 15 years. But hey, this isn’t a bummer; it’s an opportunity:
I want to be clear about the spirit in which I share this news: this is a moment for urgency and purpose—not panic. Universities that respond with focused, strategic effort will emerge stronger. Those that do not will find their options narrowing. I am committed to ensuring Syracuse is in the former category. We will manage this challenge through clear thinking, deliberate action and institutional resolve.
Translation: a bunch of you are going to get fired. That’s the “deliberate action and institutional resolve” thing. We might even have to fire some—gasp!—administrators.
Unmentioned is the horror of horrors: the athletic programs might even feel the financial pinch. In March, the entire basketball coaching cohort was fired, which was attributed to poor performance, but…
Many, including Prof. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame, have long been predicting the catastrophic failure of many colleges and universities. It wasn’t hard to predict.
Graphic: X Post
Barack Obama federalized the student loan industry with the idea that everyone should go to college at taxpayer expense. Colleges, already feeling the pinch of declining enrollments, began accepting anyone with a federally guaranteed student loan and a pulse. To their amazement, colleges were forced to establish remedial high schools on campus as a great many students weren’t remotely prepared for college, an issue I addressed back in 2021.
On one hand, it was great for colleges, who had an influx of cash, which encouraged them to go full crazy for DEI—never go full crazy for DEI–which required the hiring of so many new highly-paid administrators they soon outnumbered the faculties of many colleges. Remedial courses cost no less than actual courses, but granted no credit, meaning many had to spend up to seven years for degrees previously earned in four or less. Grade inflation concealed the reality of unprepared students, and professors blamed America’s high schools for sending them such poor students.
Graphic: X Post
All the while, many people who should never have been in college dropped out with huge loan debts they, without job skills, credentials or experience, had no hope of paying off. Defaults were inevitable, and the Biden Administration labored mightily, and largely unsuccessfully, to forgive those debts. College-age Americans and their parents soon realized they’d be much better off with trade schools, which produce in-demand graduates with high earning potential and little or no debt.
Read more Albanian exuberance
The proliferation of non-productive but very highly paid administrators and “studies” majors that filled the Democrat demand for virtue signaling but produced graduates with no earning ability convinced an increasing number of Americans that a traditional college degree wasn’t worth the cost of diploma paper.
America is facing a potentially debilitating shortfall of electricians, plumbers, mechanics and other skilled tradesmen, people who make very good livings, much more than teachers and others with college degrees. PhDs are now a dime a dozen, and teaching positions, particularly those with tenure, are almost impossible to find. To reduce unnecessary administrators, universities have had to eliminate more highly paid, tenured professorships, replacing them with poorly paid adjunct teachers who earn no benefits.
Graphic: X Post
None of these trends were hidden. All were predicted but ignored, until, that is, potential students realizing college just wasn’t worth the time and money stayed away in droves and couldn’t be ignored any longer. Some colleges have closed their doors forever. Virtually all are firing staff and even, to their horror, administrators. Many, notified that their DEI programs and affirmative action admissions and hiring are violating federal law, are renaming and hiding those aberrations, even as the academic ship continues to slip beneath the waves.
No one who really wants to attend college, particularly older non-traditional students, should be turned away. I’ve taught many such people who struggled but graduated, better and more confident for their efforts, if not necessarily better paid. But by focusing on leftist politics, egos, and self-aggrandizement, while ignoring economic reality, many academicians have forced a painful restructuring of America’s universities and colleges.
Whether they will return to classical education in the service of America remains to be seen.
Become a subscriber and get our weekly Friday newsletter with unique content from our editors. These essays alone are worth the cost of the subscription.
Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, lifelong athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer, and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
Read more Talarico no Lone Ranger on law and order