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Interesting stats within:

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20.../150929992

Quote:Graduate student enrollment has not kept pace with undergraduate enrollment, according to Whitaker.

UA has seen roughly 2 percent growth in graduate student enrollment during the decade. The percentage of the student body represented by graduate students — which has hovered near 15 percent for much of the decade — was only 12.5 percent this year, Whitaker said. The graduate student enrollment has gradually decreased since its peak for the decade in 2012. Among SEC schools, Whitaker said graduate students make up about 25 percent of the enrollment.

“We need to double our graduate enrollment just to be among our peers,” he said.

I see only two solutions:

1. Shut down UAB graduate programs (Nursing? Engineering?) and move them to Tuscaloosa
2. Accept the Blazers into the SEC, consider enrollment numbers together.

I think the trustees want to try option 1.

Tuscaloosa already has nursing and engineering programs. UA's numbers are hurting because fewer people are becoming lawyers. Aside from a tiny percentage of 3rd and 4th year medical students who do their final rotation in Tuscaloosa, the only other "professional" students in Tuscaloosa are at the law school.

For other graduate students (Ph.Ds) UA is going to have to stop building frat houses and start building labs. Can't move that from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa.

(09-23-2015 04:40 PM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  Tuscaloosa already has nursing and engineering programs. UA's numbers are hurting because fewer people are becoming lawyers. Aside from a tiny percentage of 3rd and 4th year medical students who do their final rotation in Tuscaloosa, the only other "professional" students in Tuscaloosa are at the law school.

For other graduate students (Ph.Ds) UA is going to have to stop building frat houses and start building labs. Can't move that from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa.

Bingo. UAB's graduate nursing program is about to expand as well. We're top heavy and they're bottom heavy. Nice planning there

(09-23-2015 04:46 PM)biglizard Wrote:  

(09-23-2015 04:40 PM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  Tuscaloosa already has nursing and engineering programs. UA's numbers are hurting because fewer people are becoming lawyers. Aside from a tiny percentage of 3rd and 4th year medical students who do their final rotation in Tuscaloosa, the only other "professional" students in Tuscaloosa are at the law school.

For other graduate students (Ph.Ds) UA is going to have to stop building frat houses and start building labs. Can't move that from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa.

Bingo. UAB's graduate nursing program is about to expand as well. We're top heavy and they're bottom heavy. Nice planning there

To be fair it's not a bad thing that UA (and UAH and seemingly every other four year school in the state) also have nursing programs. There's a huge demand (or at least there was a few years ago when I last knew about this stuff) and the more spots the better. UAB is doing great by specializing in advanced nursing degrees. Plays right into our strengths of research.

Considering the Birmingham businessmen who got football back didn't even have connections to athletics, imagine what would happen if the BOT messed with the business school named after one and health/medical chairs endowed by half of them.
They'll have to build graduate enrollment on their own.

After reading that article it looks like John Knox has been right on every point.

When I look at the two articles together (Knox and this one) a question rises in my mind. If Knox's enrollment figures are correct, Bama held static at about 15,000 from 1963 to 2001. At that time Bama expanded enrollment from that level to over 30,000 in less than 1 1/2 decade. I wonder just exactly how they did this and what is the need NOW to manage the growth?

(09-23-2015 10:29 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  When I look at the two articles together (Knox and this one) a question rises in my mind. If Knox's enrollment figures are correct, Bama held static at about 15,000 from 1963 to 2001. At that time Bama expanded enrollment from that level to over 30,000 in less than 1 1/2 decade. I wonder just exactly how they did this and what is the need NOW to manage the growth?

Some states export a lot of HS grads, so the warm bodies are out there if you can harvest them.

But as for why NOW, that is an excellent question.

Because their out of state tuition replaced state appropriations which have been on a very steep decline since 2001.

(09-23-2015 10:29 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  When I look at the two articles together (Knox and this one) a question rises in my mind. If Knox's enrollment figures are correct, Bama held static at about 15,000 from 1963 to 2001. At that time Bama expanded enrollment from that level to over 30,000 in less than 1 1/2 decade. I wonder just exactly how they did this and what is the need NOW to manage the growth?

They are trying to shift blame for the enrollment boom & make it appear like it was something out of their control.

(09-24-2015 06:29 AM)the_blazerman Wrote:  

(09-23-2015 10:29 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  When I look at the two articles together (Knox and this one) a question rises in my mind. If Knox's enrollment figures are correct, Bama held static at about 15,000 from 1963 to 2001. At that time Bama expanded enrollment from that level to over 30,000 in less than 1 1/2 decade. I wonder just exactly how they did this and what is the need NOW to manage the growth?

They are trying to shift blame for the enrollment boom & make it appear like it was something out of their control.

Yeah it's like they woke up one day and said "where did all these people come from??"

(09-23-2015 10:46 PM)58-56 Wrote:  

(09-23-2015 10:29 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  When I look at the two articles together (Knox and this one) a question rises in my mind. If Knox's enrollment figures are correct, Bama held static at about 15,000 from 1963 to 2001. At that time Bama expanded enrollment from that level to over 30,000 in less than 1 1/2 decade. I wonder just exactly how they did this and what is the need NOW to manage the growth?

Some states export a lot of HS grads, so the warm bodies are out there if you can harvest them.

But as for why NOW, that is an excellent question.

It's pretty simple. Saban is on the way out and their football success will run out sooner than later. Everything operates around football, right? (maybe I should have used a dark navy font)

I think alot of these issues are related, and it shouldn't be a mystery why certain things have changed recently with respect to the UAT growth plan and management of their assets.

The growth in enrollment at UAT was definitely about raising institutional revenue to help drive some of their other campus initiatives in order to make the campus more appealing to students and high profile recruits, no doubt.

But with respect to athletic funding specficially, the Crimson Tide Foundation (fundraising arm of UAT athletics) was not created until 2005. By forming this entity, UAT was able to better fund athletics without necessarily being under the public scrutiny of a public, tax-payer funded entity. Additionally, as a result of this private arm of funding, UAT has therefore stopped collecting student fees to support athletics for the last 6-7 years. This allows them to take the "moral high ground" with respect to not burdening their students with costs supporting athletics.

As it relates to UAB, our reliance on student fees also allowed them to attack UAB athletics with more fury seeing as how UAB did not have a private arm of funding (at least in an organized fashion). This, I believe is the foundation of their attack on UAB's "public use of funds" to support athletics. This is one of many reasons I think it is critical that UAB formally establish our athletics foundation soon.

(09-24-2015 03:25 PM)UABslant Wrote:  

(09-23-2015 10:46 PM)58-56 Wrote:  

(09-23-2015 10:29 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  When I look at the two articles together (Knox and this one) a question rises in my mind. If Knox's enrollment figures are correct, Bama held static at about 15,000 from 1963 to 2001. At that time Bama expanded enrollment from that level to over 30,000 in less than 1 1/2 decade. I wonder just exactly how they did this and what is the need NOW to manage the growth?

Some states export a lot of HS grads, so the warm bodies are out there if you can harvest them.

But as for why NOW, that is an excellent question.

It's pretty simple. Saban is on the way out and their football success will run out sooner than later. Everything operates around football, right? (maybe I should have used a dark navy font)

The Romans were said to have controlled their populace through "bread and circus (chariot racing)". Alabama seems to have replaced the Roman chariot races with SEC football and NASCAR. At the same time the two largest athletic departments are swimming in cash through "charitable contributions" (UA -$150 million annually and AU $113 million annually), the schools themselves struggle to stay afloat by large tuition increases on all undergrad and grad students since state SETF funding has been cut since 2008.

“We need to double our graduate enrollment just to be among our peers,” he said.

No, you need to hire actual researchers, equip labs for them to work in, and fund the research.

(09-24-2015 05:18 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  

(09-24-2015 03:25 PM)UABslant Wrote:  

(09-23-2015 10:46 PM)58-56 Wrote:  

(09-23-2015 10:29 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  When I look at the two articles together (Knox and this one) a question rises in my mind. If Knox's enrollment figures are correct, Bama held static at about 15,000 from 1963 to 2001. At that time Bama expanded enrollment from that level to over 30,000 in less than 1 1/2 decade. I wonder just exactly how they did this and what is the need NOW to manage the growth?

Some states export a lot of HS grads, so the warm bodies are out there if you can harvest them.

But as for why NOW, that is an excellent question.

It's pretty simple. Saban is on the way out and their football success will run out sooner than later. Everything operates around football, right? (maybe I should have used a dark navy font)

The Romans were said to have controlled their populace through "bread and circus (chariot racing)". Alabama seems to have replaced the Roman chariot races with SEC football and NASCAR. At the same time the two largest athletic departments are swimming in cash through "charitable contributions" (UA -$150 million annually and AU $113 million annually), the schools themselves struggle to stay afloat by large tuition increases on all undergrad and grad students since state SETF funding has been cut since 2008.

The reason why UAT's athletics is "swimming in cash" and the university itself is "struggling to stay afloat" is because their problem is the opposite of that of UAB: Alumni and other contributors care more about their athletics than their academic programs.

(09-24-2015 09:12 AM)biglizard Wrote:  

(09-24-2015 06:29 AM)the_blazerman Wrote:  

(09-23-2015 10:29 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  When I look at the two articles together (Knox and this one) a question rises in my mind. If Knox's enrollment figures are correct, Bama held static at about 15,000 from 1963 to 2001. At that time Bama expanded enrollment from that level to over 30,000 in less than 1 1/2 decade. I wonder just exactly how they did this and what is the need NOW to manage the growth?

They are trying to shift blame for the enrollment boom & make it appear like it was something out of their control.

Yeah it's like they woke up one day and said "where did all these people come from??"

Nope, they woke up one morning and Witt was no longer in charge.