This is all very impressive. FUBeAR has been thrilled with (almost) everything to do with FU Athletics under VPADJD’s abundantly capable leadership.
Pot stirrer.FUBeAR wrote: ↑Thu Jun 27, 2024 2:10 pmThis is all very impressive. FUBeAR has been thrilled with (almost) everything to do with FU Athletics under VPADJD’s abundantly capable leadership.
That said…and this is a sensitive subject that FUBeAR has avoided opining upon for 4 years or so … but…with all of this amazing growth…
HEY … Let’s play ball (again)…
ABSOLUTELY!!FUBeAR wrote: ↑Thu Jun 27, 2024 2:10 pmThis is all very impressive. FUBeAR has been thrilled with (almost) everything to do with FU Athletics under VPADJD’s abundantly capable leadership.
That said…and this is a sensitive subject that FUBeAR has avoided opining upon for 4 years or so … but…with all of this amazing growth…
HEY … Let’s play ball (again)…
From today's Inside Higher Education: Many small private colleges are surviving quarter to quarter, narrowly avoiding sweeping budget cuts. The bungled FAFSA rollout pushed some over the edge, according to a June 28, 2024, article by Liam Knox in Inside Higher Education.
Just in case folks aren’t aware of what you mean by the “FAFSA fiasco”…Affirm wrote: ↑Fri Jun 28, 2024 3:47 pmFrom today's Inside Higher Education: Many small private colleges are surviving quarter to quarter, narrowly avoiding sweeping budget cuts. The bungled FAFSA rollout pushed some over the edge, according to a June 28, 2024, article by Liam Knox in Inside Higher Education.
Lindenwood University […FCS MEMBER, ESTABLISHED 1832, had 6,992 STUDENTS in 2021…] announced spending cuts in December 2023 to balance its budget. After the FAFSA fiasco skewed enrollment projections, it had to cut even more.
Lindenwood University cut 10 of its 50 sports programs and eliminated nine nonathletic staff positions as part of a budgetary “rebalancing,” as the university called it. In order to get through the fiscal year without additional cuts, the small private college in St. Charles, Mo., needed tuition revenue to hold steady. Instead it experienced the biggest enrollment disruption since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lindenwood’s 2024 projected fall enrollment is also down 12 percent year over year, a decline the Lindenwood President attributed largely to the FAFSA woes. This month (June 2024) the university announced it would cut an additional 10 percent of operating budget by fall, starting with layoffs for another 12 staff and two faculty members. “We would not have cut to the degree that we did were it not for what we’re seeing with FAFSA,” Lindenwood President said.
Small independent colleges have been closing at an accelerated pace, and many of those teetering on the edge are restructuring, slashing budgets left and right; this semester has been particularly rough for program cuts. Small institutions are also more reliant on tuition revenue than ever, and the enrollment consequences of the bungled FAFSA launch have pushed some to make more drastic cuts than they otherwise might have.
… the FAFSA crisis was a “force multiplier” that expedited program cuts at small colleges already buckling under a confluence of financial challenges.
“Small colleges and universities are having to stretch their resources thinner than ever … numerous schools anecdotally report that this year has been remarkably challenging,” “[The FAFSA] removed a lot of the margin that schools had to deal with other issues.”
Should have known it was gonna be ******Up when they put a *******Lawyer in charge of it.FUBeAR wrote: ↑Fri Jun 28, 2024 5:09 pmJust in case folks aren’t aware of what you mean by the “FAFSA fiasco”…Affirm wrote: ↑Fri Jun 28, 2024 3:47 pmFrom today's Inside Higher Education: Many small private colleges are surviving quarter to quarter, narrowly avoiding sweeping budget cuts. The bungled FAFSA rollout pushed some over the edge, according to a June 28, 2024, article by Liam Knox in Inside Higher Education.
Lindenwood University […FCS MEMBER, ESTABLISHED 1832, had 6,992 STUDENTS in 2021…] announced spending cuts in December 2023 to balance its budget. After the FAFSA fiasco skewed enrollment projections, it had to cut even more.
Lindenwood University cut 10 of its 50 sports programs and eliminated nine nonathletic staff positions as part of a budgetary “rebalancing,” as the university called it. In order to get through the fiscal year without additional cuts, the small private college in St. Charles, Mo., needed tuition revenue to hold steady. Instead it experienced the biggest enrollment disruption since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lindenwood’s 2024 projected fall enrollment is also down 12 percent year over year, a decline the Lindenwood President attributed largely to the FAFSA woes. This month (June 2024) the university announced it would cut an additional 10 percent of operating budget by fall, starting with layoffs for another 12 staff and two faculty members. “We would not have cut to the degree that we did were it not for what we’re seeing with FAFSA,” Lindenwood President said.
Small independent colleges have been closing at an accelerated pace, and many of those teetering on the edge are restructuring, slashing budgets left and right; this semester has been particularly rough for program cuts. Small institutions are also more reliant on tuition revenue than ever, and the enrollment consequences of the bungled FAFSA launch have pushed some to make more drastic cuts than they otherwise might have.
… the FAFSA crisis was a “force multiplier” that expedited program cuts at small colleges already buckling under a confluence of financial challenges.
“Small colleges and universities are having to stretch their resources thinner than ever … numerous schools anecdotally report that this year has been remarkably challenging,” “[The FAFSA] removed a lot of the margin that schools had to deal with other issues.”
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/gov ... amid-fafsa
Richard Cordray Takes the Fall for FAFSA Fiasco
The Federal Student Aid chief and debt-relief czar is stepping down after months of criticism over the bungled FAFSA overhaul.
Richard Cordray, the chief operating officer of the Office of Federal Student Aid and top student loan official in the Biden administration, is stepping down.
Cordray has faced mounting criticism from…the higher education community over his agency’s rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FASFA), which has been beset by a raft of delays and technical errors that have frustrated college financial aid offices and hampered college access for underserved students.
Wednesday is May 1, the traditional commitment deadline for most colleges—though many have pushed back their deadlines to adjust for the FAFSA delays. Students are still struggling to fill out the form thanks to general confusion and a slew of technical glitches, and colleges are still waiting for hundreds of thousands of Institutional Student Information Records to package their aid offers, thanks to a series of processing errors.
In addition to FAFSA, Cordray's agency is charged with executing the Biden administration’s so-called Plan B for debt relief, which has been in the works since last summer, when the Supreme Court struck down an earlier plan for student loan forgiveness.
“The president depends on the person in this job to do it on Day One,” said Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center. “Plan B is coming fast and furious.”
Cordray’s departure also adds to years of leadership churn at FSA. He is the third person in seven years to serve as the agency’s COO.
Though the form itself is meant to be simpler and its new Student Aid Index calculations will surely expand eligibility for federal aid, many would take issue with that characterization of the new form’s rocky first year: FAFSA completion rates are down by 29 percent as of April 19, according to data from the National College Attainment Network.
The Education Department has been under fire for months over the chaotic FAFSA rollout…the Government Accountability Office has opened multiple investigations into the project. Recently, some…urged the department’s inspector general to take a closer look at the planning and staffing decisions involved with the overhaul—and whether resources needed for FAFSA were routed toward debt relief programs.
In hearings on the Hill earlier this month, Cordray emerged as the primary target of…ire over the bungled launch. Student aid advocates who testified at those hearings did not shy away from casting blame.
“If there was a financial aid director or college president who delayed financial aid for six months on their campus, the professional price that would be paid would be pretty steep,” Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, told lawmakers.
NASFAA declined to comment on Cordray’s departure as did Virginia representative Bobby Scott, the top Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee. (Representative of North Carolina, Virginia) Foxx was more eager to weigh in.
“Cordray will be remembered for his ineffective leadership, blatant partisanship, and his failures regarding FAFSA rollout and return to repayment,” Foxx said in her statement. “The Department of Education’s Office of Federal Student Aid needs a leader that students, families, and institutions can rely on to put politics aside and faithfully administer the law.”
“This is not just about congressional calls for accountability; it is about accountability, period,” (senior vice president of government relations and national engagement at the American Council on Education, Jon) Fansmith said. “With a problem of this magnitude, the person in charge ultimately is going to be held responsible.”’
Cordray has had a long career in Democratic politics. He served in the Ohio state house in the early 1990s and later as the state’s attorney general. He was the first director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau when it was formed under the Obama administration. After tangling with congressional Republicans who wanted to shut down the agency, he left the post in 2017 to run, unsuccessfully, as the Democratic nominee for Ohio governor.
When he was appointed FSA chief in 2021, the news was greeted with enthusiasm from debt-relief advocates. But Cordray’s legacy is sure to be colored largely by the FAFSA fiasco.
Fansmith said “…this is probably the biggest financial aid disaster in decades, if not of all time. It’s very hard to walk away from that without forever being associated with it.”
Cordray may not be the only player to face the heat over FAFSA as the dust settles. Contractors working with the department—namely General Dynamic Information Technologies, which received a $121 million contract to help with the technical system overhaul—could be next on the hook for accountability.
Mark Kantrowitz, a financial aid expert and consultant who has worked on FAFSA overhauls in the past, agreed that General Dynamic and other contractors bear responsibility for the delays and errors that disrupted the rollout.
“Everyone is pointing fingers. But what I’ve been hearing is, the contractor missed deadlines and frequently made mistakes all along the way,” Kantrowitz said. “There should be some sort of penalty for them, too.”
…Kantrowitz believes his (Cordray’s) political priorities and lack of student-aid experience waylaid the new form.
“If FSA had gotten the actual overhaul done seven months earlier, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now,” he said. “But they were in denial about how big a deal this was. They kept on painting everything with rose-colored glasses when it was clear there was a problem.”
Cordray’s replacement will have to lead the agency through the difficult task of readying the FAFSA for its planned October relaunch this fall—and help colleges that normally would have already begun preparing for the next applicant cycle play catch-up.
“I hope they get someone who is operationally good and politically savvy in the role, because I don’t think this is over in June,” Schraeder said. “I think everyone’s waiting with bated breath for the next steps.”
In fact, they have (per their athletics website) every men’s sports program that we have plus 6 more that we do not have; and every women’s sports program that we have plus 6 that we do not have. Additionally, under “Athletics”, they have also another 14 so-called SLS sports teams (“Student Life Sports“?) in a variety of additional areas such as archery, dance, shotgun, cycling, e-sports, bowling, “you-name-it”.
