Iowa Wesleyan closing its doors
- Thread starter 4cy16
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Dordt and Northwestern will be fine, there areplenty of rich farmers in NWIA who are dutch reformers. They will be taken care of.
I know some HSs have partnered with CCs or small private schools to provide higher end classes or just extra classes to help the college and save the HS money. Daughters BF literally only set foot on his HS campus his senior year for extra curricular stuff, rest was all at college that the HS paid for.
This certainly can happen at Coe/Mt. Mercy and Loras/Clarke. There is no reason they couldn't have one HR office, one business office, one President, have a shared health plan, etc. Loras and Clarke almost merged back in the 80s. They had everything planned and figured out except for leadership. Loras insisted the Loras Pres, Father So and So, be the new President. Clarke insisted Sr. Katherine be President. The whole thing fell apart because of that.
I know a guy who works closely with the community colleges. He said in Iowa the bulk of CC students enrolled in Liberal Arts classes are high school students earning AP/Dual Credits and not traditional aged college students (not true for Voc-Tech programs) and that is really hurting the community colleges. They are desperate to have students complete their AA but students just aren't.
If you are a traditional aged college student that isn't an athlete places like Waldorf, Grand View, and William Penn would be difficult places to attend. When 86 percent of the student population is in practice each day what is there for the non-athlete to do?
CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
A lot of these kids have played competitive sports since they were 5 so playing a few more years is a big draw. The liberal art colleges don’t have a lot of advantages over the Regent U’s but it’s one they exploit pretty well.
At one point WP had over 70 kids on their men's basketball team. Offer a $2000 scholarship and you'll be surprised how many people sign up to pay their tuition.
She is about 5-6 years from retirement, but her scale maxed out at 14 years, so she has been at the top end for 10 years or better. She teaches in NC Iowa and classes are 30-40 per grade. My oldest had 33 graduate in his class and my daughter was just under 40. My youngest currently has maybe 30 in his class.
I emailed the super (We know each other fairly well and chat) what starting pay was. They are a little over 40k on the base and the rest of the conference is all around them give or take a couple grand except one was 45k beginning. This doesn't include the other things that they get from the state, bonuses, (wife gets some overtime for a few things), or other things like letting college kids observe in your class (all my wife has to do to get paid for this is log the hours that they show up.
Easiest way for teachers to lock down a job is to agree to coach some also. A couple sports can add around 3k each for being an assistant.
They were bought by Columbia State roughly 20 years ago (maybe 25). Just this semester, I believe, they have spun off and went back to being affiliated with the ELCA. This could be the beginning of the end if they don't get things figured out, but like another poster said, you would be surprised how many kids will go to school there to get that 2500 dollar bowling scholarship.
Don't know about the other ones but I wouldn't be so confident about Wartburg. Their president back in the mid 2000's, Jack Ohle, put them in A LOT of debt and I know it was a struggle for at least a decade after his tenure. Don't have as close of connections now so maybe it's gotten substantially better but I doubt it.
Yeah, dual enrollment doesn't pay at the same scale as a student enrolled in the college off the street.
The ugly truth is that the liberal arts courses are cheap to run compared to career tech, and it balances the books.
When the liberal arts side of the coin isn't bringing in the same level of money, that's where the pinch is.
Kirkwood is just hovering over 12,000 students all told. It's down substantially from when I arrived about 12 years ago, where we were hovering around 20,000.
Wife went there, she gets a little information every so often but doesn't get a lot. (Probably since she now follows ISU more than anything and says she prefers her kids to go to a larger school than Wartburg). They have a strong pre-med program and I always figured that they had enough doctors to help them out.
I will say they have some very nice facilities, and maybe Ohle's debt is why. I don't know, I just know it was nice the few times that I had been there with the wife.
CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
They have spent a lot of money on that. They've got some nice, new facilities.
Classrooms aren't updated or comfortable, but they've got the sports.
$130K for a principal … you could double that and I would still say no.
