The unofficial online home for fans of the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

(07-25-2020 08:29 AM)BearcatMan Wrote:  

(07-25-2020 07:54 AM)Bearcat 1985 Wrote:  

(07-24-2020 11:02 PM)doss2 Wrote:  

(07-24-2020 04:11 PM)CliftonAve Wrote:  Ran across this article in Forbes from a few days ago. Not a lot of material but the author talks about the woes facing Akron, Wright State and Ohio University. He think Akron and WSU will eventually be absorbed by someone else too.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardvedd...0874d9497b

Sad to hear OU has dropped its standards. 25 years ago when my daughter graduated *** Laude its academics were decent.

I don't know about Vedder's description of OU. I think he might be looking back at his institution with some rose colored glasses. OU didn't move to selective admissions until well after OSU did and never caught up or came close to OSU or Miami. I remember them having a decent reputation for undergrad but nothing special. Probably the best thing that happened to them was OSU's forced open admissions in the 60s and 70s so they could market themselves as "OSU's no different than US!" Recently, they have really stagnated though, and UC has firmly moved past them as an undergraduate college as evidenced by both rankings and admissions selectivity.

If I had to handicap the field, it'd be something like this:

Above The Fray: OSU (too much endowment, fundraising, research funding, admissions demand and political power for anyone else to be in their orbit)

Thrive: UC (clearly has established itself as the state's secondary comprehensive research university, solid fundraising and endowment, big time athletic department. The goal in the next decade is to expand its reach into being a truly statewide institution.)

Survive Intact: Miami (Solid finances, strong--though ultimately limited due to the university's culture--admissions demand. I may not care for the place, but they've carved out their own peculiar little niche that works for them. The one caveat is that if their Chicago pipeline dries up all bets are off since 9 out of 10 Ohio kids accepted to both OSU and Miami choose OSU right now, and they've never been able to build that out of state demand in the West or Northeast as successfully as they've strip mined the Chicago suburbs.)

Survive But Not Without Pain and Changes: OU, KSU, BGSU (these schools are going to have to face up to the folly of their ridiculous academic empire building over the last 50 years and will face serious restructuring. They did not pass GO, they did not get 2 billion dollar endowments and they do not get to be OSU)

In Real Danger: UT, CSU, Shawnee State, Youngstown State

Bring Out Cha Dead!: Akron (say hello to KSU's new Urban campus), Wright State (OSU's WPAFB research extension, come on down!)

I would probably bump UT up into the same group as BGSU, OU, and Kent State due to their much larger endowment than BGSU/KSU (triple both and just under a half billion) and their higher general research expenditures than all three, plus the benefit of having a decent metropolitan area to draw from. They're going to hurt, but they're in no way, shape, or form in the fore straits of CSU, YSU, or SSU. They ran a smaller budget deficit than KSU did this past year even with a decrease in enrollment vs. an increase for KSU. Kent State is is a way worse position than people think for one specific reason, theyve built out FAR too much and are extremely over-debted...those branch campuses were a great way to beat the retention-based funding rule, but they're killing their bottom line now.

Having said all of that, I'd still be absolutely shocked if BGSU and UT and Kent State and Akron were not merged into larger entities with explicit purposes (liberal arts at one campus, technical/professional degrees at the other) within the next two decades.

OU is also going to get slaughtered by Covid if they arent allowed to have on-campus classes. They rely on residential and auxiliary revenue for nearly 31% of their total operating budget every year. That's the problem with having absolutely no commuter student population...no budget insulation if you cannot house students.

I agree about Toledo. IMO, they're in pretty decent shape and are neck-and-neck with Kent to be #3 after UC. Although I'm not the one on this board who works there....

A question to Mr. 1985 - what do you mean by "academic empire building?" Do you mean that they went into too much debt to build new buildings? Or they opened programs with high fixed costs whose demand will dry up? Or something else?