Good morning, and welcome to Thursday, August 17. Rick Seltzer wrote today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Get in touch: rick.seltzer@chronicle.com.

Has flagship growth hit its limit?

Three stories from the past week show public-flagship universities’ success also breeds one of their greatest failures, suggesting coming struggles over whom they’re for, what they’re supposed to do, and how they go about paying for it.

Public flagships jacked up spending and tuition revenue over the last two decades, even after accounting for inflation, according to an analysis of 50 institutions The Wall Street Journal published last week:

• Median spending went up by 38 percent between 2002 and 2022.
• Tuition-and-fee revenue jumped even more rapidly, rising by more than 64 percent, after taking enrollment gains into account.
• For every dollar colleges lost in state support, they increased tuition-and-fee revenue by almost $2.40.
• Quotable: “Everyone knows about the lazy rivers, everyone knows about some of the sort-of-extravagant projects,” Andrea Fuller, one of the Wall Street Journal reporters behind the project, told the Daily Briefing. “We wanted it to not just be about a stupid thing they spent money on, but the deeper, more systemic issue.”

Some colleges that cater the most to wealthy families are in fact public institutions, Kevin Carey, education policy program director at the liberal think tank New America, wrote in The Atlantic on Tuesday.

• Many students cross state lines to attend these institutions, which means they pay higher tuition rates. At the University of Alabama, 58 percent of undergraduates are enrolled at the $32,400 out-of-state rate, for example.
• Wealthy students are much more likely to attend out-of-state flagships, because most out-of-state students receive relatively little financial aid.

One flagship, West Virginia University, is implementing deep cuts to manage a $45-million deficit, our Dan Bauman reported:

• Plans call for slashing 32 programs and eliminating as many as 169 faculty-line positions.
• The institution missed a goal of enrolling more than 40,000 students by 2020. Now leaders are talking about enrollment declining to as low as 21,000 students by 2033.
• Leaders have said cutting will allow the university to reinvest resources in growth areas.

Growth is the thread that connects these stories. Flagships have long turned to growth as their north star. Here’s why:

• State funding: Leaders argue tuition increases compensate for states spending less on higher education.
• Financial aid and student support: Enrolling more wealthy full-pay students can generate money institutions use to fund financial aid and support services, which in turn enables low-income students to enroll in college and stay until they graduate.
• The arms race: If an institution isn’t spending to attract top students and faculty members, someone else will.
• Competing priorities: Flagship institutions are asked to be state standard-bearers that offer broad access to college, conduct cutting-edge research, drive economies, and don’t sap too many resources from other public institutions.
  

Reality check: The Wall Street Journal data doesn’t support state disinvestment as a driver of tuition increases. Whether flagships actually take the extra money they generate from wealthy students and use it to educate low-income and first-generation students varies greatly. And spending to drive up enrollment can be a risky bid that leaves future generations footing the bill if the growth cycle doesn’t continue.

The big question: Demographic changes unfolding across the country will depress the market even for many flagship universities. These institutions have been remarkably successful at expanding in recent years, which minimized the need for hard choices. What will they do when the growth flywheel stops?

Quick hits

• Four in 10 bachelor’s students have had internships: But only 27 percent of first-generation college students and 36 percent of those enrolled at public colleges took part in internships while pursuing an undergraduate degree, according to a survey conducted in March. Difficulty finding an internship was the top reason students gave for not taking part in one. (Gallup)
• Community college settles football-death lawsuit: Fort Scott Community College, in Kansas, did not disclose the terms of a settlement with the mother of Tirrell Williams, who collapsed and died at the age of 19 in 2021 after a preseason football workout. (KCUR)
• City council signals support for Birmingham-Southern College: Birmingham’s City Council on Tuesday said it intends to commit money to help keep the nonprofit Alabama institution open, provided Birmingham-Southern secures financing from a new state program that could lend it as much as $30 million. (Al.com)

Stat of the day

68 percent

That’s the share of likely voters who support banning legacy admissions, according to polling from the liberal firm Data for Progress, our Nell Gluckman reports.

Bipartisan support: Remarkably, 72 percent of Democrats, 66 percent of Republicans, and 66 percent of independents all supported banning legacy admissions. Lawmakers from both major parties have taken up the idea of banning admissions preferences for children of alumni as it’s come under fire after the Supreme Court declared race-conscious admissions illegal this summer.

Quote of the day

“We look terrible.”

—Rebecca Lautar, associate dean in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters at Florida Atlantic University

Lautar commented on Florida Atlantic’s delayed presidential search while speaking during a public-comment segment of Tuesday’s Board of Trustees meeting.

The context: The State University System of Florida’s chancellor suspended the search last month, alleging it improperly polled search-committee members about their favored candidates and asked candidates about their sexuality and preferred pronouns. That stoked speculation that a state lawmaker was the preferred choice of powerful politicians in Florida but had been passed over as a finalist.

Trustee tempers flare: Brad Levine, the chair of the university’s Board of Trustees, defended the search process and three finalists it named. But the board’s vice chair, Barbara Feingold, criticized the finalists and objected to Levine talking about the search with reporters. Levine was appointed by then-Gov. Rick Scott, while Feingold was appointed by current Gov. Ron DeSantis. Both governors are Republicans.

Comings and goings

• Melissa Just, dean of the university library at the University of Saskatchewan, has been named dean of libraries at the University of Southern California.
• Joseph E. Buck, vice president for development and alumni relations at Lehigh University, has been named vice president for advancement at the University of Oregon.
• Ketan Gandhi, vice president for finance and chief financial officer at Caldwell University, has been named chief financial officer at Georgian Court University.
• Nikesha Nesbitt was named dean of the University College at Arkansas State University, after serving as interim dean.

To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com.

Footnote

As students flock back to campuses for the fall term, revisit some of the worst roommate horror stories from The Chronicle‘s archives. My personal favorite is the student who yelled at her roommate by writing in all-caps on a whiteboard, because the two didn’t speak.

Readers may recall that I waxed poetic last week about covering college move-in day, when students’ positive energy is on display in spades. Stories like that of the whiteboard are a reminder that the optimism doesn’t always last.

I’d love to capture both sides of the coin by featuring reader submissions. Have a particularly heartwarming or cringeworthy story about a college roommate? How about a great photo from move-in days past or present? Email me at rick.seltzer@chronicle.com, and I’ll feature the best in upcoming mailbags and footnotes.