rogers3 wrote: ↑October 22nd, 2019, 7:10 am
I've said that we would lose our edge and the cash cow wouldn't always be what it was.
This will happen. I think the hope (and goal) has to be that when the cash cow dries up and advantage is lost, that LU is on strong ground financially and academically (and maybe I should add spiritually) to push forward. Using the online money to aggressively build out the campus now is smart. If you start with everything pretty much new now, it removes those costs from future years when money might not be flowing at the same rate. Maintenance and minor renovations is certainly cheaper than major construction.
I do think that LU is really pushing athletics and the beautiful campus right now to gain market share. At some point soon though, it needs to ramp up the focus on academics. The good news is that when LU does focus on something, it usually gets done. And, academic status can be increased. I live right down the road from USF. When I moved here, it was widely considered just a commuter school. The last USF president made a very concerted effort to focus on academics and the result was that the school has rapidly shot up the US News & Princeton rankings in a very short period of time. It can be done. Part of USF's improvement is very real and legitimate academic improvement. However, part of it is really just being smart about how the schools is set up. They figured out the ratings formula. While that may seam hocus pocus, it actually becomes self fulfilling, because more academic students and faculty will now choose to go there. For instance, if LU figures out a way to separate the online academic stats from the residential stats, the brick and mortar school would see an immediate jump in the ratings it gets from the outside rating agencies (which in turn, would entice students currently scared off by LU's academic standing to come to LU). Purdue and Penn State figured out how to run big online programs while protecting the academic ratings of their main campus. LU can if it wants to.
But yes, the cow will dry up.