Editorial
in McMinnville, News-Register Feb 15, 2019
As a
result of declining enrollment on its home campus in McMinnville, where the
count has now dropped below 1,250, Linfield College has no alternative but to
cut faculty.
By
necessity, the layoffs will affect underperforming programs where demand is
weak or waning. It would be foolish to target robust programs serving to best
fill classroom seats and thus tuition revenue.
The
question is, will the school ax entire departments or programs, or engage in
more selective trims?
Understandably,
that’s a matter of great anxiety for tenured members of its teaching corps. But
it’s not just their futures at stake; it’s the destiny of the entire
McMinnville operation.
Linfield
has a bright future in Portland, where its nursing school already accounts for
44 percent of the combined graduate total. Demand there far outrstrips supply,
and acquisition of a new campus positions Linfield to capture an outsized
share.
The
future is cloudier here in McMinnville.
One of
the key vulnerabilities is a dangerously high 92 percent reliance on tuition
revenue to fund operations. Another is an endowment dwarfed by those of most
peer institutions, giving it little cushion to fall back on.
Linfield’s
endowment hovers around $100 million. And it’s been spending about $3 million
into that annually, in order to sustain a combined two-campus faculty of 166.
Elsewhere
in the Northwest’s private liberal arts realm, endowment tops $200 million at
Willamette and Lewis & Clark, $300 million at Puget Sound, $400 million at
Whitman and $500 million at Reed. In many cases, those schools are also less
tuition-dependent.
At the
top of the private school food chain, Harvard University boasts an endowment of
$39 billion. It relies on tuition to meet only 21 percent of its expenses, and
is able to fund the other 79 percent without tapping its endowment.
Aspiring
to Harvard-like heights is beyond all reason. However, planning for greater
parity with peer institutions is not.
Linfield
has already tightened on the support side, redoubled its student recruitment
efforts and proffered an early-retirement offer. Still bleeding red ink, it has
little choice now but to impose academic cuts, no matter how painful that might
prove for students and faculty.
The
reality is this:
The pool
of American high school graduates has been shrinking for years. Because of
soaring tuition rates and growing debt fears, that pool is turning increasingly
to two- and four-year state schools. Bernie Sanders’ free-tuition movement,
gaining momentum on the left, could easily turn a trickle into a torrent. And
with unemployment at record lows, proceeding directly into the job market has
become increasingly enticing, no matter how short-sighted.
We’d hate
to see Linfield become a Portland-based nursing school with a local liberal
arts annex. We’d hate even more to see it become a Portland-based nursing
school with no local presence whatsoever.
College
President Miles Davis didn’t create this challenging situation. He inherited
it.
To all
appearances, he’s committed to taking thoughtful but forceful steps to resolve
it. In that, he deserves the support of all true friends of the college, both
on campus and in the larger community.