It's starting, schools retaliate

[XUGRAD80]

How many of those 105 never sniff the playing field?


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Over the course of a 3-4 year college career, very few never play any. Most players quit, or transfer to a lower level, if they aren’t seeing any playing time at all by their 2nd year. Most coaches do not want to use their starters on special teams, which make up about 1/3rd of the total plays in a football game. There are usually a lot of freshman and sophomore’s on special teams. Most starters do not play every down, either. Coaches rotate players in to keep them fresh. And then there are injuries. It’s getting fairly rare that any player makes it a whole season without some kind of injury. A school like UC can usually hang pretty good with an SEC school…starter to starter. It’s when the 2nd and 3rd teams are competing against each other, that they really can be dominant. There’s a big drop off in talent from 1st to 2nd team at a school like UC. Not so much at a school like OSU. They just don’t have the quality depth the more successful programs have.

[XUGRAD80]

Insanity is what it is. What is the rational behind the increase?

If you read my post above you’ll see that they are actually going to reduce roster size, not increase it.

[xudash]

Dash: What does "financial fortitude" mean? And, "'management'" is confident in their plan for the school moving forward." This same "management" just had a decline of nearly one-fifth in frosh. . .how are these same people moving XU forward? Sorry, this is very, very bad. How big will the deficit be in the current FY? How about the next FY? It seems to me the administration and board are both complicit in this situation. Clear, definitive plans need to be put in place & made public or XU's reputation will be quickly eroded. Any further downgrade in bonds will be seen as horrendous.

H68, we're after kids (willing parents) who can pay the freight - through graduation. Period. There had been cases where kids were admitted who wanted to attend Xavier badly and who had the academic chops to make it, but they didn't have the financial wherewithal to continue at Xavier, so they had to move on. That situation was not good for and fair to them personally, and it certainly didn't help Xavier's retention performance. Coupled with the ability to pay is the ability to make it through the curriculum to a diploma.

The vast majority of universities and colleges in the United States are feeling the impacts of declining enrollment. There isn't a "management" team around that can do anything about a shrinking pool of potential collegiate candidates - lower freshmen classes are the norm now and for the foreseeable future. With that noted, yes, we still didn't make our target for this year, but the guy we now have running this area (who came from Notre Dame) is still very new to his position. We'll see how this plays out moving forward.

Academically, Xavier's leadership team is moving Xavier forward by eliminating certain low-value, low-impact academic offerings, while leaning into new programs for Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, Genetics, Neuroscience and Microbiology. Obviously, it also is moving forward with the medical school.

X continues to right size financially, which is to say that budget deficits are being addressed.

The administration and the Board are "complicit" in mopping up some issues from the prior administration while addressing the new reality. They've implemented a sophisticated long term plan. It includes clear and measurable CFO's. It wan't done as an exercise to toss onto a shelf to collect dust. Xavier is now living this plan. And, no, there is no way in hell they're going to publish it, though you'll see it come to life through announcements as objectives are achieved moving forward.

About two years ago - I'm not going to look up the actual timing of it - a Notre Dame grad announced a $50 million gift to Xavier. Shortly after that an anonymous gift of $50 million was announced. Then a Xavier alumnus announced a $20 million gift. And recently a family very close to Xavier announced a $60 million gift. As also has been noted before, Gary Massa's crew has raised $1 billion for X since he's been in the job. You're worried about the bond rating? Well, our last issue was oversubscribed. The organization leading the issue made particular note of Xavier's brand and strategy for moving forward. Stuff like this doesn't happen for universities that are poorly managed.

I don't have blue-collared glasses on, btw. I certainly wish the endowment were higher to help with all of this. Having noted that, you should know that that is up to bat next - a capital campaign to get the endowment closer to where it needs to be. We're still going to have to fight and claw for the students we want to attract to Xavier moving forward.

The shrinking pool of college age kids and all the questions about the value of a college degree are real, but it remains a fact that a college degree will still take you further in life economically in most cases, and not everyone is cut out to be a plumber or electrician where they otherwise may contemplate a white-collar profession.

Overall, in my opinion and based upon what I've seen directly, Xavier is well positioned to move forward. It may require a lot of Pepto-Bismol or just a bunch of strong martinis to ride this current environment out, but I believe X will better in the long run.

[GoMuskies]

H68, we're after kids (willing parents) who can pay the freight

I get it, but it kind of sucks that financial wherewithal is part of the formula for who they're trying to attract.

[hoopster68]

Dash: Thanks much for your explanation; appreciate you taking the time to make your case. However, several items remain unclear to me:

1. where does X rate among the 26 Jesuit schools in terms of enrollment increase/decrease?
2. what academic majors are being eliminated?
3. how does X rate, both among Jebbie schools and other private institutions in terms of administrative staff (non-teaching)?
4. why not publish the strategic plan? would it not help to assure donors, parents, others of forward progress, if milestones are met?

I don't believe you appreciate the concern among "some" alums; anything the administration can do to be more transparent may be beneficial. Go X!

[xudash]

I get it, but it kind of sucks that financial wherewithal is part of the formula for who they're trying to attract.

I understand.

But this is the reality that higher education and parents created for themselves. Someone mentioned the notion of what the higher education experience should involve, or has become. Xavier wouldn't be where it is today if it hadn't played the capital projects arms race game like everyone else. Brockman versus Justice Hall. Hell, Brockman was an absolute blast. But the newer generations like the amenities. On the other hand, we truly wouldn't be where we are today if Jim Hoff didn't have the vision and drive for completing the Cintas Center.

At any rate, X did what it has done and is doing on the bricks and mortar side while growing the endowment as best it could. Again, if we had had sharper people in control in the 70's, we would be enjoying an endowment built on investment returns at this point.

We know how to raise money and we've demonstrated that we can raise a lot of money now, but we're still going to have to play a little catch up to get the endowment to a point where we can take more stress off that financial wherewithal thing. That's part of the focus now.

[xudash]

Dash: Thanks much for your explanation; appreciate you taking the time to make your case. However, several items remain unclear to me:

1. where does X rate among the 26 Jesuit schools in terms of enrollment increase/decrease?
2. what academic majors are being eliminated?
3. how does X rate, both among Jebbie schools and other private institutions in terms of administrative staff (non-teaching)?
4. why not publish the strategic plan? would it not help to assure donors, parents, others of forward progress, if milestones are met?

I don't believe you appreciate the concern among "some" alums; anything the administration can do to be more transparent may be beneficial. Go X!

H68, please allow me to be clear on a few points:

1. I'm not "making a case"; I'm providing factual information in an effort to provide some perspective here.
2. Everything I've shared happens to be in the public domain.
3. While I'm "involved" with the University, I am not in its administration (i.e. I've seen the plan, but I wasn't involved in its development).

Frankly, I believe I do appreciate your concern. I wouldn't be here responding to some of this stuff if I didn't care about Xavier. However, I am not going to share information from Xavier's Strat Plan on this message board or any other public platform for that matter.

I suggest you contact the alumni office to share your first 3 questions with them. Perhaps they'll have direct answers for you, or will at least be able to guide you to someone who has those answers. You could then ask them about the Strategic Plan. I can't imagine they'll hand it over, given its level of detail, but perhaps they can provide an alumni-focused executive summary of where we're headed.

[XUGRAD80]

I support the Xavier Administration’s plans. It’s good business, and Xavier IS a business.

The cost of retaining customers is far less than the cost of bringing new customers in. Think of students as being customers of Xavier. They want a return on their purchase, just like anyone else would want on any other purchase. Every year they can repeat their purchase or they can purchase the product somewhere else, or just stop purchasing the product. Xavier wants to have repeat customers that will continue to purchase the product they have to offer. Additionally, they want their current customers to endorse their product to other potential customers. Friends, family, children. Like any other business, they will never have 100% customer retention. However, the most successful businesses do have a higher rate or customer retention than those that are not successful. Identifying your core customer demographics and managing your business in such a way that you can delver the return on investment and customer service that will keep them as customers is the key to any successful business. .

[hoopster68]

I support the Xavier Administration’s plans. It’s good business, and Xavier IS a business.

The cost of retaining customers is far less than the cost of bringing new customers in. Think of students as being customers of Xavier. They want a return on their purchase, just like anyone else would want on any other purchase. Every year they can repeat their purchase or they can purchase the product somewhere else, or just stop purchasing the product. Xavier wants to have repeat customers that will continue to purchase the product they have to offer. Additionally, they want their current customers to endorse their product to other potential customers. Friends, family, children. Like any other business, they will never have 100% customer retention. However, the most successful businesses do have a higher rate or customer retention than those that are not successful. Identifying your core customer demographics and managing your business in such a way that you can delver the return on investment and customer service that will keep them as customers is the key to any successful business. .

Grad80: Bringing in 17% fewer frosh doesn't seem to be "identifying your core customer demographics" very successfully. Does your line of work permit this level of performance?

[XUGRAD80]

Grad80: Bringing in 17% fewer frosh doesn't seem to be "identifying your core customer demographics" very successfully. Does your line of work permit this level of performance?

Yes and no. In every business I’ve been involved in the objective has been to build your customer base by retaining current customers and bringing in new customers. But it’s important for a business like X to target the right potential customers. X is not, never has been, and never will be, a large public institution. It shouldn’t try to act like one.

If they can improve their retention rate for each class by 10% they can more than make up for that lower number of new customers. If they bring in students that can’t cut it academically or financially long-term and then leave after a year, they are going to have to replace those people every year, just to stay even. There is a lot of expense involved in getting someone to commit to coming to the university that 1st year. The expense of getting someone to come back is minimal. It’s a much more sound financial strategy to target potential customers that are in it for the long run and not just here today and gone tomorrow. Growth for growth’s sake looks good in the short term but doesn’t work over the long run. Not when the potential customer pool is shrinking.