Why a Global Education Company Thinks It Can Revive Struggling Dowling College

Dowling College is in dire financial straits thanks to mounting debts that have been exacerbated by falling enrollments. Two weeks ago, the college announced it was closing for good. But an education-investment company based in Europe might be throwing the college a lifeline.

Courtesy of Global University Systems

Global University Systems, known as GUS, provides capital to higher-education institutions and strengthens their recruitment efforts. The company is considering a deal with Dowling, a private institution on New York’s Long Island, to keep the college’s doors open.

Maurits Van Rooijen, chief academic officer of Global University Systems, said the company serves more than 60,000 students at a dozen colleges and universities around the world. He said the company offers its partner institutions certain resources, such as global marketing operations and an online platform, that they could not build themselves. The Chronicle interviewed him to find out more about the company and how its potential Dowling deal came to be. The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Q. How does your company find a university or college like Dowling and decide to pursue a partnership with them?

A. I think in fairness Dowling found us rather than the other way around. There are two answers to that. First is the formal answer. And that is there was a process which was led by the Royal Bank of Canada. I think they listed something like 14 institutions that would be potentially of interest to the college. Now I did happen to know the college, and the college happened to know me, so it’s not surprising that we ended up on that kind of list. But the process otherwise was definitely against a set of criteria. They looked at who was actually in a position to help the college.

Q. Dowling College had a considerable amount of debt and had a major decrease in enrollment in the past few years. Was that a major factor, that your company could handle that?

A. We can handle that. But what’s more important is that Dowling is academically sound, it has major support amongst alumni, the community, et cetera, et cetera. So we were very impressed with Dowling College as it is. It just hasn’t been very well governed and managed over the past 10-plus years. And as a consequence of that, it put itself in a situation where it wasn’t really viable anymore … What is a bit of a problem with Dowling College is that we got involved in such a late state. With colleges like that, they get a warning from the accreditor. Basically, two years ago they had a warning from Middle States and really should have acted at that stage and started looking at options.

The worrying thing with Dowling College is it’s so tight. It can, at a certain moment, be too tight and you run out of time. The lesson learned from Dowling College, I mean, hopefully we’ll manage. But it is not a wise move to let it wait until it is literally a few minutes to 12 … It’s going to be touch and go whether everything will come together on time. I do not know what the outcome is going to be. Of course I do sincerely hope that it’s going to be positive, because I really love the college. I think it has massive potential. But sometimes we also have to admit that under time pressure, we can’t do the impossible.

Q. When you are identifying colleges to work with, do you look for colleges that have received that warning notice from the accreditor?

A. No, absolutely not. Most of our own colleges and universities and also our partner institutions are very sound. There is absolutely no correlation between being in a tight corner and working with us. There are a number of institutions who joined us because they were like that. But of course we would be also hesitant to have only institutions in that position. So it’s a mixture.

Q. When you sat down with Dowling, what weaknesses needed to be addressed?

A. The weaknesses are, unfortunately, blatantly obvious. Over the last 10 years, there has not been very strong governance and, therefore, the college got itself into different directions, trying out different avenues, which have never been pursued all the time. A lot of money was invested in strengthening the infrastructure, which in itself might not be a bad idea, but you take on big debts which can only be dealt with by bringing in a large number of extra students. None of these strategies have been carefully implemented.

I think over the last 10 years they’ve had more than seven university presidents. Now that already is a very clear indication that there is an awkward relationship between government and management. This is really a classic example of a college that hasn’t had a very strong board and very strong management.

Q. I was reading a Guardian article about the London School of Business and Finance, a college owned by GUS, where instructors were complaining about the organization and structure of the college. How do you intervene when a problem like that comes up?

A. That actually came out of an argument of the dean of that college with staff, whereby he refused the salaries of some of the adjunct staff, and they were obviously not very happy with that. And that got spilled over into the media. To be honest, that kind of discussion happens in any college all over the country at any time. We are aware that, of course, a slightly more left-wing-leaning newspaper would be very interested in that discussion, especially at a private college.

But all of that got sorted and settled, I mean it should never have been in the newspaper in the first place. It was purely an internal discussion about some of the rates paid to some staff. It was really more of a matter for the dean, and it was a discussion that got a little bit out of control.

Q. Some of the schools Global University Systems has worked with in the past have been for-profit, whereas Dowling is a nonprofit institution. Will that be different, working with a nonprofit?

A. I fully appreciate that in the U.S. that has become a sensitive area. But the truth is that it’s very simple to talk in generic terms about for-profit and not-for-profit. There are a lot of extremely well-organized not-for-profit institutions, very well-managed and some less-well-managed. And the same is true on the for-profit side.

There’s a certain level of prejudice in this. There are a number of for-profits, American for-profits, that have made some serious mistakes. And that paints the for-profit sector. At the end of the day, in academe we should have a little more nuanced approach to this. The gap or distinction being made between not-for-profit and for-profit is a little bit uncalled for. It’s often closer together than one thinks.