ACUHO-I News Blog

Are young adults happily spending their parents’ money again? This article* says they are. This one** says they’re not. Both use the phrase  “The  Bank of Mom and Dad.”

What have you seen on your campus? Is discretionary spending beginning to tick up again?

To make it interesting, let’s handicap things:

* This article links to a page that, as of this posting, has a link to a story: “Girls With Tattoos: It’s not just a guy thing,” as if this is something new.

** This article links to a page with a link to a story: “How Barbie Got Her Geek On,” which Barbie is rumored to do every few years, and it never really happens.

The National Retail Federation reports that families are spending more per college-bound student, but fewer people are planning to attend college this year, so overall back-to-college revenue is down. College students and their parents will spend an average of $618.12, up from last year’s average of $599.38. Total spending will decrease, by just over 30 million.

The National Retail Federation has something to say about this, of course: “The economy is forcing young adults to make hard decisions about which schools to attend, where to live, and what’s really a “necessity” for college,” says Tracy Mullin, President and CEO of the National Retail Federation. “This year, college students are just as focused as their parents on finding good deals and making smart choices with their money.”

Among the choices students are making is where to live. More students are opting to live at home rather than in residence halls or off-campus, according to the National Retail Federation. Of the respondents to the survey, 12.8% said the economy is affecting where their student lives this year. Students living at home will be 58.5% of the college population up from just over 54% last year and 49.1% in 2007. Students choosing to live in a residence hall make up 15.8% of the student population, down from 18%, and students living off-campus are down to 22.4% from 24.3%.

One question was left unanswered by the National Retail Foundation, but NPR came to the rescue: Are parents of incoming freshmen are still baffled by those extra-long sheets? (Yes.)

Given the limited summer employement opportunities for students (institutions even created jobs for their students) and unpromising prosepects for permanent job offers, one might think college students would be in a funk. But no, they’re actually pretty cheerful, according to a survey by MTV. A significant majority, 73%, of 18 to 24 year-olds report being mostly happy and satisfied with their lives, even as they acknowledge they will likely have a harder time than their parents did achieving the classic American Dream: a job, a marriage, a house. Are they complacent? Pragmatic? Or are they operating under a different definition of “happiness”? MTV didn’t offer any explanations.

Even with the recent cuts and furloughs, higher education is the place to be in the job market. So says a report from HigherEdJobs.com. While jobs overall in the US have plunged considerably, the higher education job situation has remained steady. Since people often use a recession as an opportunity to return to higher education in order to be better candidates when the job market improves, colleges and universities may actually see more business. Community colleges are seeing amazing enrollment numbers.

The picture isn’t entirely bright; new hires are mostly of faculty, not administrative staff; most schools are being conservative about hiring; and many are adding more part-timers and adjuncts than full-time positions. Check out the results here.

Colleges and universities hoping to save a few pennies (or a few hundred thousand) can read an article in last week’s New York Times’ Education section for inspiration: For Colleges, Small Cuts Add Up to Big Savings.

Schools are finding savings through attrition of products and services that are no longer popular (phone lines and voicemail), letting the cleaning slide a bit or providing fewer cushy services to students. Some of the money-saving changes might have been made anyway– cutting orientation by one day, challenging students to an energy-saving competition, eliminating cafeteria trays or providing admissions materials online–but they’re also saving hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Some of the money-saving ideas are more quirky than others. The article mentions a “virtual swim meet” between Dickinson College and Bryn Mawr College. The teams swam in their home pools, then compared times. Not meeting face-to-face saved $900.

EARLY ADMISSION FROM THE WAITING LIST: In a break from tradition, some private colleges offered some additional spots before a final count was in on how many accepted applicants were coming:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/04/waitlist

CLASSROOM FAILURE, POSTSEASON BAN: For first time, NCAA bars sports teams from championship play because of poor academic performance. Association’s leaders admit that poorer institutions are more likely to face such penalties:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/07/ncaa

FLESHING OUT THE FEDERAL BUDGET: Obama administration details 2010 spending plan unveiled in February, which would increase and lock in Pell Grant funding and double spending on basic science over a decade:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/08/budget

Boy, things really are getting tough out there, as evidenced by this news from the Boston Globe newspaper that Harvard University and its Office of Career Services recently saw fit to offer a seminar on how to handle rejection. According to the story, “Participants, who wore snappy buttons with the word rejected stamped in red, also received a road map of sorts on handling failure, a pink booklet of rejection letters and personal stories from Harvard faculty, students, and staff members.”

One student who attended the seminar, senior Olga Tymejczyk, commented that, “Rejection is inevitable sometimes, even if you go to Harvard.” The Latin American studies major wants to work in higher-education administration or healthcare research.

In related news, if the program is looking for any adjunct experts in rejection, they are welcome to give this author a call.

Not a lot of institutions have spare cash lying around, but for those who do–or those who can scrounge some up–now is prime time to request bids for construction projects, according to a Chronicle of Higher Education article. The cost of construction materials are declining, and of course firms could use the business, so prices can be very competitive.

These tight times will mean that some firms will likely cease to exist, as the weak are winnowed from the herd, so to speak. And of course this period will be (one hopes) short-lived, so there are a limited number of schools that can use the downturn to their advantage.

A selection of college housing and student affairs headlines from InsideHigherEd.com. Look for these on a weekly basis in the ACUHO-I news blog.

FIRST-GENERATION RESIDENCE: In twist on the theme house concept, U. of Cincinnati focuses on first-generation, low-income freshmen:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/01/21/firstgen

DORM LIVING AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE: Some small colleges are using the Myers-Briggs personality test to either match freshman roommates or help resolve conflict between them:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/12/12/myersbriggs

IT’S CULTURE, NOT MORALITY: What if academics have been fighting the wrong war against plagiarism? What if it’s not even a war? In new book, anthropologist doesn’t argue for you to drop standards, but she challenges longstanding strategies:
http://insidehighered.com/news/2009/02/03/myword

STIMULATING BOON FOR SMALL COLLEGES: Lost amid big-dollar provisions in stimulus bill is tax code change that could make it easier for private institutions to borrow for capital projects:
http://insidehighered.com/news/2009/02/02/stimulus

NOT SO THRILLED: In latest thriller, John Grisham ties a rape scene to Duquesne U., not the U. of Virginia where he drew his inspiration. The choice rankles Duquesne officials and and revives a story UVa might rather put behind it:
http://insidehighered.com/news/2009/02/02/grisham