OT: MSU is broke. In fall 2021, all second year students have to live in dorms.
As a parent, I prefer on-campus living for undergrads, but obviously this is a cash grab from a mismanaged university hard-up for cash flow.
"University reinstates second-year on-campus living requirement
Michigan State University wants to ensure every student has the opportunity to learn, thrive and graduate."
https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2020/reinstate-second-year-on-campus-living-requirement
December 1st, 2020 at 6:42 PM ^
Well with a 3 billion dollar endowment, maybe they can just eat into that for a year or two and not offload the trouble to students. Dare I say maybe some high paid admins can take a pay cut too?
December 1st, 2020 at 8:03 PM ^
Yeah, endowments are weird. Colleges and universities work like hell to build them and work even harder not to use them when times are tough. It’s weird. Pretty sure I read somewhere that research shows donors back back off when schools dip into endowments out of fiscal need rather than to fund something new and shiny. Seems a bit counter intuitive.
December 1st, 2020 at 8:44 PM ^
Endowments are used to support low-income families who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford a college education.
December 1st, 2020 at 10:38 PM ^
Michigan's endowment is approximately $13 billion. If they cut tuition in half for every student and covered it out of the endowment it would cost about $650 million, or 5%, which would be a reasonable return on the 13 billion. So, cut tuition in half for everyone and pay for it out of the interest.
Its nice universities help support students who otherwise could not attend. But its a drop in the bucket. There is no excuse for Michigan's tuition to be what it is with 13 billion available. No excuse whatsoever.
December 1st, 2020 at 10:40 PM ^
Oh yeah...as for highly paid fat cat administrators taking significant pay cuts? Fat fucking chance.
December 2nd, 2020 at 8:48 AM ^
I have a really hard time believing that administrative costs are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Do you have any data to back up your presumption that administrative cuts would have a substantive impact on university costs?
December 2nd, 2020 at 5:01 PM ^
Merely reacting to the comment in the first response. I don't know how much administrative costs are or how much could/should be saved. I do know that tuition is unaffordable to the majority of the population, students are taking loans that will handcuff them financially for years or decades and my beloved alma mater is sitting on $13 billion. And my anger about the whole situation far exceeds my anger toward Jim Harbaugh.
December 1st, 2020 at 11:08 PM ^
A good portion of the endowment is "restricted", so that means that the donor specified a certain use and it is only to be used for that. For the "unrestricted" portion and the earnings, yes they can and do use that to offset the cost of tuition and other activities.
December 2nd, 2020 at 12:57 AM ^
I figured there are various restrictions on the funds. Still, you'd think they could find a way to use it instead of raising tuition or offloading costs to students. Surely there are some sort of emergency funding provisions; if not, you'd think the Regents and other big shots would have considered creating them at this point.
December 2nd, 2020 at 12:25 PM ^
Couldn’t agree more. Michigan sitting on such a huge endowment while consistently raising tuition is shameful. It’s a public university, for crissake.
December 3rd, 2020 at 6:25 PM ^
Yeah... Harvard's endowment is worth $41 billion this year. Keep drinking that Kool-Aid that endowments are used for students from low-income families. Or all the employees, ie food services, that they laid off.
December 2nd, 2020 at 8:32 AM ^
Folks donating that kind of money to a university usually aren't doing it to support the school. They're doing it for vanity; it's conspicuous consumption.
Michigan happily takes my monthly donation to the Maize & Blue Cupboard, because it has students, staff, and faculty who are food insecure. At an organization with a $13,000,000,000 endowment.
December 1st, 2020 at 6:46 PM ^
From the linked article:
MSU’s occupancy capacity is 18,203, which accounts for all residence hall room types and apartments. It’s estimated the number of first- and second-year students living on campus would be roughly 16,000.
I read that as meaning two things: (1) revenue, as the OP suggested, and (2) a move to push occupancy so they don't have to face consolidating and possibly mothballing a dorm or two.
All that said, I think living on-campus for the first two years is, on balance, a good thing. Michigan State is a campus that's fairly large, and a lot of apartments are some distance from key instructional buildings.
When I attended from 1977 to 1981, that rule was in place. I didn't mind dorm life ... mostly because I was still growing (5'10" in high school to 6'1" to start sophomore year) and I needed all the food I could eat. The dorm system worked out for me. I shocked more than a few cafeteria servers going back for thirds, fourths ... hell, one meal I went back 16 times. (They would only serve one taco at a time.)
December 1st, 2020 at 7:00 PM ^
Tell me more ?
December 1st, 2020 at 7:02 PM ^
Yeah, I think I would have preferred to remain on campus if everyone else in my class did. I just didn't want to be the random sophomore amongst a bunch of freshmen and I wanted to be able to host parties/drink which isn't really that healthy (and not legal), even if it was fun at the time.
Meeting other smart people is arguably the most important aspect of the college experience and living in a dorm is far more conducive to that, than living off campus.
While this is def a cash grab, I would argue my experience would have been more fruitful (and probably safer and healthier, ha) with another year in dorms.
December 1st, 2020 at 6:50 PM ^
Yup. Morally broke. Financially broke. Defines MSU.
December 1st, 2020 at 7:37 PM ^
really, gloating? I have great friends who went there and know a number of children of friends there now. I wish the best for those students.
December 1st, 2020 at 8:05 PM ^
Huh. Didn’t think Sparty and I had anything in common. ?
December 1st, 2020 at 9:07 PM ^
Yet morally and financially broke Mel Tucker will being going for 2-0 against the team down south in about 10 months.
Ridiculous take.
December 1st, 2020 at 6:51 PM ^
Ohio State did this (I think) about 10 years ago. Don’t think MSU is broke.
December 1st, 2020 at 7:01 PM ^
I have zero to go on aside from my experience but when I visited OSU as a HS junior in 1997, I'm pretty sure there was an on campus living requirement for the first two years
December 1st, 2020 at 6:55 PM ^
I would take up a class action lawsuit on this if I were planning on going there. Paying 10 grand or more per semester to live in relatively shitty conditions relative to an apartment is just financially stupid.
December 1st, 2020 at 7:16 PM ^
December 1st, 2020 at 7:19 PM ^
I can't speak for conditions today, but back in 1977 to 1981 the dorms were a far cry better than a lot of the apartments. Many of those were just awful.
Related -- I guess, to a point -- I was looking at an ad for some new apartments near the University of Arizona here in Tucson. Holy smokes ... $3K/month for a two bedroom, two bath. I haven't been in the rental market for almost 30 years now ... is that typical?
December 1st, 2020 at 8:06 PM ^
That seems insane for Tucson.
Off-topic: Did you make the trip to Salt Lake City in April, 1979? :)
December 1st, 2020 at 8:12 PM ^
I wasn't living in Tucson in 1979, and aside from living in the same town as U of A, I don't really have any connection with it. What is Salt Lake City 1979 ... did U of A go to the NCAA finals that year?
December 5th, 2020 at 8:12 AM ^
December 1st, 2020 at 7:37 PM ^
As a lower middle classstudent who put himself through UM, I would be very upset it my university pulled this shit. Dorms were incredibly expensive. I was far more able to stretch my dollars in off campus housing than I could do in a dorm. This would be a budget killer
December 1st, 2020 at 7:51 PM ^
Lower middle class students from the state of Michigan get free tuition now at UofM, I believe, so this can easily be done in a way that subsidizes lower income students.
December 1st, 2020 at 8:12 PM ^
Free? Seriously? Would have been nice 20 years ago, I'm still paying back student loans.
December 2nd, 2020 at 4:02 AM ^
Indeed. I was 35 years old and still paying off student loans.
December 2nd, 2020 at 6:33 AM ^
What you paid in tuition 20 years ago is almost free compared to what students pay now.
December 2nd, 2020 at 9:24 AM ^
in 1998, undergrad tuition/ semester was $3000 and dorm was $3000, so $12,000 per year. I thought that was a lot. Now it is $28,000/ year. 2.3 times the cost in just over 20 years. I'm screwed when I try to send my kids to college.
December 1st, 2020 at 10:04 PM ^
If money really meant that much you or your kids would go to a JUCO for the first two years like God intended.
December 1st, 2020 at 7:19 PM ^
Freedom
December 1st, 2020 at 7:21 PM ^
SPARTANS WILL...LIVE IN DORMS
December 1st, 2020 at 8:39 PM ^
they tried to change their model to more international students the last couple of years because the in-state model wasn't working.
then Covid. . .
December 1st, 2020 at 10:00 PM ^
Out of all the things they could do, this is one of the least objectionable. Student apartments near MSU are terrible, and the students are gouged hard by the local slumlords (at least, this was the case when I lived in Lansing). Dorms are at least maintained.
I assume there will be massive exceptions, for people in frats/sororities, and when they inevitably run out of rooms? Didn't read the article.
If MSU suddenly jacks up dorm prices by $10k, then students can burn some couches.
December 1st, 2020 at 11:11 PM ^
As someone running the biggest study on residence life in 30 years, be thankful they are doing this. In normal times, your kid is more likely to persist (and likely graduate, can't claim this definitively yet) if they live in the residence halls a second year. The impacts are likely to be more acute now as the pandemic limited social interactions last year. Given the perceived make up of the board, the relationship is particularly large for rich kids who live in large houses or the greek system.
This is also under active discussion at a number of schools even before the pandemic. Schools wish they had the capacity to enforce this type of rule, but the large number of college-aged kids meant they lacked capacity. As the demography changes, the capacity challenges are waning. Adding a second-year mandate is top of the list of non-COVID priorities for the provost at my Big10 institution.
December 2nd, 2020 at 1:07 AM ^
"Schools wish they had the capacity to enforce this type of rule"
Lol, I'm sure they do. Then they'll enforce year 3... 4...
in b4 "it'll never happen"
December 2nd, 2020 at 12:58 PM ^
Shouldn't it have been announced back in the summer or very early fall before thousands of families committed to off-campus leases? It would also impact third and fourth years who got houses with second year roommate(s), who now have to live in a dorm.
December 2nd, 2020 at 11:21 AM ^
The data clearly show that (1) couch-burning tendencies peak at age 19, and (2) off-campus couches are at higher risk than university-owned couches. This is simply an effort to save the furniture.