Colleges Flunk Economics Test

Colleges Flunk Economics Test as Harvard Model Destroys Budgets

Another long article on the plight of colleges.

Kalamazoo College is featured extensively in the article.

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“Pell serves the neediest students, but our middle-class families need help too right now,” says Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran, president of Kalamazoo College, a liberal arts school in Michigan.

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Kalamazoo College, with 1,340 students, has told professors to increase class sizes so it can boost tuition revenue.

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At Kalamazoo College, the main cafeteria, which the school renovated as part of $14.5 million in spending on the student center last year, lets students pick among pizza, hamburgers, grilled vegetables, make-your-own salads and a dozen other choices.

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Kalamazoo College, 240 miles to the east, is scrambling to slash $2.8 million in costs. It needs to compensate for the 28 percent decline in its $157 million endowment and the expected increase in financial aid it will have to dole out next year.

On this sunny March day, Kalamazoo’s tree-lined campus is bustling with people walking to class and studying on the lawn. Students, mainly from Michigan, and faculty mostly know each other by first name. Classes range from 1 person in an upper- level Italian course to 40 in some introductory classes. For the small classes and personal attention, students pay $38,166 a year, including room and board.

Saving Money

Saving money is a campus-wide affair. On this day, about 40 students, professors and staff gather in a wood-paneled conference room. The group calls out suggestions, and students write them on easels lined with blank white paper: Dorm hall lights shouldn’t be on 24/7; videoconferencing instead of travel; rent classrooms to companies.

While those ideas will help, the only savior for a school like Kalamazoo is more paying students. Last year, it had six fewer than anticipated, which means it will lose about $1 million over four years, says Jeffrey Haus, a professor of religion and history who’s on the admissions committee.

“They’re asking us to increase the size of attendance,” Haus says. “Larger classes work against the mission of a small liberal arts college.”

Amanda West, a first-year Kalamazoo student from Los Angeles, says she might transfer to a bigger school that costs less and offers more.

“I’m worried that my experience here won’t be as rich as it could be,” she says.