January 20, 2014
Jan 20 02:39 More on SCSU's enrollment problems Jan 20 02:32 Persell's con job Jan 20 03:24 Reagan vs. Obama, Just the Facts edition Jan 20 09:58 Top-down health care Jan 20 11:05 SCOTUS to hear forced unionization case Jan 20 15:08 All we wanted was the truth Jan 20 15:45 Franson vs. Nelson
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
More on SCSU's enrollment problems
The Ugly Truth about Graduate Enrollment
by Silence Dogood
The Office of Strategy, Planning and Effectiveness at SCSU maintains a website that is available to the public (http://www.stcloudstate.edu/ospe/research/data.asp). Some very interesting data is stored at the site. Using data from SCSU's Office of Strategy, Planning and Effectiveness website, the following plot of fall semester graduate student enrollments is obtained:
The growth (166 students) in graduate student headcount from Fall'07 to Fall'10 helped SCSU's overall enrollment to grow. The subsequent decline (302 students) from Fall'10 to Fall'13 is shocking! Remember this data is from the university's publically available website. The growth from Fall'07 to Fall'10 represents a modest growth of 9.5%. The 15.8% decline from Fall'10 to Fall'13 exceeds the rate of decline in overall enrollment during this same time period. If you are a recent reader, this story sounds all too familiar!
So one might logically ask why has there been such a significant decline in graduate enrollment since Fall'10? Could it be "Academic Reorganization?" In the Fall'10, it was announced that over 30 programs (graduate and undergraduate) would be closed and others would be consolidated or reorganized. The purpose was explained to become more efficient and responsive. Actually, it was mostly about saving money. However, many of the programs that were cut were very small and therefore saved very little money. In some cases, they didn't save money! It's pretty easy to demonstrate that the only way to save significant amounts of money is cutting big programs that are losing a lot of money. Unfortunately, the big programs that are losing lots of money at SCSU are considered sacred and are "off limits." So much for saving money through cutting programs!
So if you look at the figure of the fall graduate enrollment, the only thing that can really be said is that academic reorganization had a marginally negative effect. So what about the rest of the decline? If the gradual rise and dramatic fall in graduate enrollment was tied to the job market and the economy, people go to school during recessions and then return to the work force during recoveries, you would expect the rise to be more dramatic and the decline more gradual since the recovery from the last recession has been very slow in creating jobs. Could it just be a "demographic" phenomenon or market saturation? Without more refined data you can't figure out the why of the decline in graduate enrollment at SCSU. And looking at the figure of the fall graduate enrollment, at least as of now, there seems to be no "bottom" in sight.
Minnesota State University - Mankato and SCSU have had very similar histories for graduate programs and their graduate enrollments have remained very similar over the years. The communities surrounding the two universities also appear strikingly similar. One might even speculate that the demographics for Mankato and St. Cloud are likely not too different.
The following plot shows the full-year equivalent enrollment (FYE) for SCSU and MSU-Mankato over the past eight fall semesters:
The FYE graduate enrollment trends are parallel for St. Cloud and Mankato in the first four years shown. Then in fall of 2010, the trends part ways. Mankato continued to grow when St. Cloud started to decline. Following each school's peak in graduate enrollment, St. Cloud's enrollment declined more rapidly than Mankato. In fact, St. Cloud's enrollment has declined to within 3 FYE of its Fall'06 enrollment. On the other hand, Mankato's Fall'13 enrollment was over 120 FYE larger than their Fall'06 enrollment.
In looking at this figure, it seems pretty clear that, since Fall'09, SCSU and MSU-Mankato have been on very different paths. Since there is no reason to believe that the two schools would be affected differently by the economy, "demographics", or market saturation, something else must account for the different enrollment trends.
In an effort to "get out in front of the story" of declining enrollments (both graduate and undergraduate), the Potter administration is saying it is "right sizing" the university. Well, to a few of us cynics, this is just a way for the administration to take credit for something bad that was happening and "make lemonade out of lemons." It might almost be believable if back in 2009 or 2010 the administration had a document laying out its plan for "right sizing." However, right now it seems more like the snake oil salesman saying, "trust me" to a potential client.
As of now, no plan for "right sizing" the university has been presented or discussed with the Faculty Association. Additionally, there is no enrollment management plan, so clearly much of what is happening at the university is happening without any long-term plan or roadmap. In fact, four years after academic reorganization there has been no assessment of the academic reorganization. Unfortunately, if this administration was to do an assessment of the academic reorganization, it would most likely hire a consultant or two to come in and tell us everything is just fine. And of course, that would cost the university several hundred thousand dollars. This sounds almost all too familiar to what happened this past summer when the university hired, without any faculty consultation, the "Great Place to Work Institute" to come in and tell us it's a great place to work!
Looking at the trends for graduate enrollment, new freshmen enrollment, new transfer enrollment, international student enrollment and the overall enrollment all pointing in the wrong direction, it is hard to see a bright future for SCSU. Until the Potter administration recognizes that it needs the help of the faculty and staff to solve these difficult problems, much like the Titanic after hitting the iceberg, the water will continue entering at an increasing rate until the fate is all too certain. At least the captain of the Titanic radioed for help as the water roared in. Fortunately for SCSU, it is not an "unsinkable" ocean liner. However, before SCSU's decline is irreversible, let's hope that SCSU's captain will recognize that it needs help before it is too late!
Posted Monday, January 20, 2014 2:39 AM
Comment 1 by Crimson Trace at 20-Jan-14 09:01 AM
Great comparison data between SCSU and Mankato. Silence is on to something...there is something bad going on at SCSU that one cannot simply blame the economy or external forces. This part was interesting..,
In fact, four years after academic reorganization there has been no assessment of the academic reorganization. Unfortunately, if this administration was to do an assessment of the academic reorganization, it would most likely hire a consultant or two to come in and tell us everything is just fine.
Amazing! Did Potter miss President 101 school? Any credible leadership team would conduct an assessment after a major change to their organization. With Potter's love affair with consultants, it is surprising he didn't use a consultant to reorganize the university. With over a half dozen pro aviation resolutions from community groups objecting to the aviation department closure, these consultants gave Potter a message he didn't want to hear.
Persell's con job
Rep. John Persell's LTE is pure spin. Here's an example of Rep. Persell's spin:
Over the past few weeks I've received several letters from people having a hard time signing up for health insurance on MNsure, Minnesota's health insurance marketplace. MNsure has had some problems along the way since opening for business on Oct. 1, and Gov. Mark Dayton is rightfully holding the responsible MNsure contractors accountable.
That's the type of spin I'd expect from a DFL legislator who voted for MNsure. What Rep. Persell didn't mention is the type of problems MNsure's had. He certainly didn't mention who families who had a family policy provided by their employer now have 3 policies , one for the husband, another for his wife and another for their children.
Rep. Persell didn't mention the fact that the MNsure board didn't tell April Todd-Malmlov to put a higher priority on securing families' sensitive data before putting together the Paul Bunyan advertising campaign. The MNsure board didn't tell Ms. Todd-Malmlov she shouldn't take a 2-week vacation to Costa Rica while MNsure was riddled with crises.
Those aren't problems. They're crises. What's worst is that they're crises that the legislature, in the form of the MNsure Oversight Committee didn't even see fit to call hearings for. Instead, Rep. Atkins kept appearing on shows telling Minnesotans that everything was fine and that they shouldn't worry.
Rep. Persell definitely didn't tell Minnesotans that their deductibles had skyrocketed thanks to Obamacare/MNsure. In light of the fact that Rep. Persell didn't want to tell the whole truth about MNsure, he certainly didn't tell people that most of the people who bought health insurance through MNsure were people who lost their insurance when President Obama and Gov. Dayton told Minnesota families what coverages their families needed. Thanks to their hubris, 140,000 Minnesotans had their health insurance policies get canceled.
Here's another part of Rep. Persell's spin:
Let's not allow those issues to overshadow the reason for MNsure's online insurance marketplace.
It's disgusting that Rep. Persell won't tell Minnesota families that the MNsure board told the IT companies which software they had to use. I'm kinda old-fashioned in that I believe in hiring experts, then letting them tell me what's needed. I don't believe in hiring experts, then telling them how to do their jobs. That's the essence of hubris.
The price of providing uninsured Americans with emergency medical treatment has contributed to increased costs for both routine medical procedures and health insurance premiums. As a way to lessen those costs, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed in 2010.
That's an outright lie. The ACA was passed because it was an ideological trophy that progressives and socialists tried passing for over a century. Rep. Persell says it was to cut health care costs. That's an outright lie, too. The ACA doesn't cut costs. It's increased out-of-pocket expenses for the vast majority of people purchasing health insurance through the health insurance exchanges.
This is what people should expect from the DFL this year. They've passed one counterproductive policy initiative after another. They raised taxes by $2,300,000,000. They enacted MNsure. They raised taxes on "the wealthiest 1-percent", then they raised taxes on the middle class, too. Then they raised taxes on small businesses.
That means their policies have produced the latest version of the middle class squeeze. At a time when families need inexpensive health care options and tax relief, the DFL passed legislation that limits families' health care options and middle class tax increases.
That's the definition of being out of touch with Main Street Minnesota.
Posted Monday, January 20, 2014 2:32 AM
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Reagan vs. Obama, Just the Facts edition
Each time that the jobs report is released, the White House posts its spin about what it means. This is from the most recent post about the jobs report:
As our economy continues to make progress, there's a lot more work to do. Though December's job growth was less than expected, we continue to focus on the longer-term trend in the economy - 2.2 million private sector jobs added and a 1.2 percentage point decline in the unemployment rate over the course of 2013. Today's numbers are also a reminder of the work that remains, especially on one of our nation's most immediate and pressing challenges: long-term unemployment.
What's interesting is that chronic unemployment doesn't happen during robust economic recoveries. This chart will cut through the Obama administration's spin:
According to the Minneapolis Federal Reserve's statistics, the increase in GDP for the 17 quarters after the 1981 recession was 23.1%. For the 17 quarters since the end of the recession in Q2 of 2009, the gain in GDP has been 10.3%. You can't see the 17-quarter gain for the Reagan recovery because the growth literally went off the chart.
This isn't a nostalgia post. Quite the contrary. It's a comparison between President Reagan's pro-growth, low taxation, low regulation policies and President Obama's policies of crippling regulations and major tax increases. The statistics speak for themselves. This chart speaks for itself, too:
According to that graphic, the annualized GDP growth under Reagan topped 7% for 5 straight quarters, with a high of 9.3% for Q3 of 1983.
At the same time during the Great Stagnation under President Obama, annualized growth rates were 3.9%, 3.8%, 2.5% and 2.4%. In short, the Great Stagnation's statistics indicate that economic growth has been pathetic. President Obama won't face the voters again but the people who voted for his economic policies will face the voters next November. Every person who voted for the Obama budget is a Democrat. They can talk all they want about preventing another Great Depression with the stimulus but that's speculation at best.
The recession Reagan inherited was deeper and had more perils to be fixed. America's industrial infrastructure was crumbling. People were speculating whether the Big 3 automakers would forever trail the Japanese. Those same people wondered if Japan and Germany would be the new economic superpowers.
The Kemp-Roth tax cuts included capital gains tax cuts, which helped Detroit rebuild their assembly lines. In less than 3 years, Detroit was humming with activity.
That was only part of America's problems. They faced high unemployment and even higher inflation. Thanks to President Reagan's pro-growth tax and regulatory policies, millions of jobs were created. The unemployment rate dropped dramatically because people got great jobs, not because people quit looking for work. Inflation dropped, too.
Five years after the banking crisis, the economy is still struggling. The jobs being created are mostly part-time jobs. Median household income has dropped. Regulatory burdens are adding crippling compliance costs. Instead of using their profits to create jobs, small businesses are spending that money complying with Washington's insane regulations.
Reaganomics worked because it gave businesses an incentive to take chances. That's the only time-tested method for lifting people out of poverty and for turning the middle class into entrepreneurs. President Reagan understood that. President Obama doesn't.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, these graphs and charts are worth a few chapters in a book because they show which policies worked and which policies are failing.
Posted Monday, January 20, 2014 8:25 AM
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Top-down health care
Scott Gottlieb's post about HealthCare.gov's conversion rates contains some dry reading but it contains an interesting tidbit. First, a little background to the interesting tidbit:
The day the Obamacare data was released, I was coincidentally meeting with Jonathan Bush, the CEO of Athena Health. So I put the question of conversion rate to him, since he sells a specialized service into the healthcare space. He said that the conversion rate for Athena's web site, for doctors who visit the site to evaluate Athena's suite of services and then make a purchase, is 22%.
According to HHS's own statistics, the conversion rate for HealthCare.gov is 5%. Here's the interesting tidbit:
The problem is that the Obamcare plans aren't attractive to consumers. They were designed in Washington to suit political prerogatives rather than being designed in the marketplace to meet the demands of consumers. They're laden down with costly mandates that leave the products too expensive. The plans try and make up for these costs by using narrow networks of cheap doctors and closed drug formularies.
That's what happens when government demands socialist policies but families require free market capitalism solutions. While that doesn't mean much in the short term, it puts the ACA behind the proverbial 8-ball in the long-term. Fighting against the will of the people is a sucker's bet that the administration will lose. It's inevitable. People want what they want. Markets respond to what people want, although it isn't a stretch to say that governments don't rooutinely respond to what people want.
Here's what Robert Laszewski said about the Affordable Care Act:
If an entrepreneur had crafted Obamacare he would've gone to a middle class family. A family of four make(s) $54,000 a year has to pay $400 in premiums net of subsidy and for that the standard silver plan has an average deductible around $2,500 and a narrow network. They're going to pay almost $5,000 for that? So the entrepreneur would say I've got $5,000 in premium and all this deductible, what do they want for that? And they probably would've said we want office visits and lab tests because the kids need to go in occasionally and then we want catastrophic care. The problem with Obamacare is it's product driven and not market driven. They didn't ask the customer what they wanted.
Telling families what they want is foolish. It's like telling American families that they don't like a gas-using sedans, that they'd rather buy a Volt. How'd that work out?
Here's another of Mr. Laszewski's opinions:
I think that's the fundamental problem with Obamacare. It meets the needs of very poor people because you're giving them health insurance for free. But it doesn't really meet the needs of healthy people and middle-class people.
That's tough criticism but it's fair criticism. People are staying away in droves. There's a reason for that. It's likely that families went shopping but didn't find products or prices they liked.
That's what happens when people design things without listening to the people they're selling the product to.
Posted Monday, January 20, 2014 9:58 AM
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SCOTUS to hear forced unionization case
This article must have Gov. Dayton and his pro-unionization allies worried:
The Supreme Court will hear arguments about forced unionization among government workers on Tuesday in a case that could greatly curtail powerful labor groups.
At issue is an Illinois law crafted by imprisoned former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and enforced by his successor Pat Quinn that forces home healthcare workers, including family members caring for relatives, to pay union dues.
The lawsuit highlights some interesting hypocrisies:
"The Illinois law only defines them as employees in terms of unionization and no other rights at all," said NRTWLDF lawyer Bill Messenger. "This is a scheme for compulsory lobbying."
The caregivers do not receive liability insurance coverage or retirement benefits that other government workers are entitled to, according to Messenger. If the court holds that state governments can force any secondary beneficiary of taxpayer dollars in the union, "vast swaths of the population" would end up paying union dues.
The NRTWLDF's claim is valid. If in-home child care providers are part of AFSCME or the SEIU, then they should receive the same benefit packages as AFSCME or SEIU employees. If they don't, then forced unionization should be seen for what it is: an attempt to collect more union dues.
AFSCME doesn't care about these small business owners. They care about staying politically relevant.
Then there's this:
'All doctors or nurses who care for Medicare patients would have to join a union by that logic,' Messenger said. 'What unions are looking at is trying to attach themselves to any kind of government funding.'
AFSCME's definition of a public employee defies logic. According to Minnesota's forced unionization law, private sector employers are classified as public sector employees if they accept children whose parents get government assistance. According to AFSCME's thinking, employees of construction companies that win bids on public works projects would be forced to join a union or pay fair share fees.
Another argument that I've heard relating to forced unionization is that the First Amendment gives businesses the right to determine who represents them in airing their grievances with the government. That makes sense because the National Labor Relations Act prohibits businesses from dominating a union :
Federal law mandates that it is an unfair labor practice for an employer to 'dominate or interfere with the formation or administration of any labor organization or contribute financial or other support to it' 29 U.S.C. 158 (a)(2)
If a business wants a trade organization or a lobbying firm to represent their interests before the government, that should be their right. Further, based on the Illinois law, it sounds like SEIU is only interested in shaking down businesses. They aren't interested in actually representing in-home child care small businesses.
I won't pretend that I'm a constitutional attorney but it seems to me that the forced unionization movement is more about shaking people down than it is about representing people. That's because the vast majority of in-home child care small businesses don't want union representation.
Posted Monday, January 20, 2014 11:05 AM
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All we wanted was the truth
The chief message from Greta van Susteren's post is that FNC's reporters just wanted the administration to tell us the truth about Benghazi. Greta put together quite a compelling case, starting with this:
So let's take a little walk in history: just a sample of how the Obama Administration tried to shut Fox News Channel's reporting down:
In the early days after Benghazi, the State Department omitted only Fox News Channel from its conference call to all the media when it claimed to be answering questions about Benghazi for the media. Our friends in other media outlets were scandalized that Fox was not included and told us all about it. They were suspicious of State Department forgetting us/Fox and courageous to tip us off. The State Department claimed it was accident and not intentional.
And then shortly thereafter, there was the CIA briefing about Benghazi at the CIA for all the networks except one: Fox News Channel. The CIA would not let Fox News Channel attend.
Leftist apologists for this administration insist that Fox News isn't really a news organization, that they're just a front for the RNC. While there's no doubt that FNC has more conservative pundits on its staff, there's equally no doubt that their straight news people are straight shooters.
Let's start with Greta. I suspect, though it's just a hunch, that she used to be a liberal. These days, again it's just a hunch, I'd bet that she's an independent. She questions Republicans just as Democrats. Nobody is let off the hook when they try slipping a question. Megyn Kelly is the same way.
FNC's correspondents fit that same mold. It's impossible to tell what James Rosen's politics are. Ditto with Jennifer Griffin and Catherine Herridge, the chief Pentagon correspondent and chief Intelligence correspondent, respectively. These women have outclassed the other networks' reporters about Benghazi for the most part. The exception to that has been CBS' Sharyl Attkisson.
These 3 women have uncovered piles of government documents telling people in the government what happened the night 4 American patriots were assassinated. In short, if liberals want to discredit FNC's reporters, they'd best be prepared to explain why a) emails within the administration verify what FNC's reporters have reported and b) why the Senate Intelligence Committee's report verifies FNC's reporting. Unfortunately, the Obama administration's treachery and threats against Fox don't stop there:
And then as I was sitting at my desk thinking about the reporting since September 2012, I thought about the weirdest of all and the worst of all for me personally! I remembered a disturbing phone call from a good friend in the Obama Administration. I have known this friend for years. The call was a short time after 9/11 (maybe Oct. 2012?) In the call, my friend told me that my colleague Jennifer Griffin, who was reporting on Benghazi, was wrong and that, as a favor to me, my friend in the Administration was telling me so that I could tell Jennifer so that she did not ruin her career. My friend was telling me to tell Jennifer to stop her reporting. Ruin her career?
In 20 plus years, I have never received a call to try and shut down a colleague, not that I even could; this was a first. Here is what I know: Jennifer is a class act, experienced and a very responsible journalist. One of the absolute best in the business, no axe to grind, she just wants the facts.
I told my friend before I go to Jennifer telling her she is wrong, I need proof she is wrong, strong proof and you need to be specific; what are you saying she is getting wrong? We went around and around, including the statement again that this was just a call as a favor to Jennifer and me to save Jennifer's career from reporting incorrect information. I got no proof. Zero. I smelled a rat. Favor to me? Hardly. My friend was trying to use me. I feel bad that a friend did that to me, tried to use me for a dirty reason. I knew then, and it is now confirmed by BIPARTISAN Senate Intelligence Committee, Jennifer was getting her facts right. I think it is really low for the Administration to stoop this low.
That's despicable. Then again, that's what I'd expect from this administration. They're more despicable than the Nixon administration when it comes to dealing with the press.
If the administration is interested in the truth, they shouldn't have a trash-the-reporters strategy. Thankfully, they tried getting Greta to bite on their spin. That wasn't just stupid. It was counterproductive.
Posted Monday, January 20, 2014 3:08 PM
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Franson vs. Nelson
One of my favorite GOP legislators, Mary Franson, apparently has a challenger for the GOP endorsement for HD-8B :
Greetings all Conservatives of the Republican Party of Otter Tail County!!!
After much deliberation, thoughtful prayer and talking with my family, I have made the decision to seek the Republican endorsement for the seat in the Minnesota State Legislative House of Representatives belonging to District 8B.
According to the Otter Tail County Constitution, any elected member of the Leadership Committee, except state central delegates, who announce their candidacy for Federal or State elected public office shall be placed on immediate leave of absence. I have talked with Representative Franson and told her personally of my intentions and will hope that we will all act in the spirit of a conservative family and make decisions that will best serve our district and our state. You all know me to be issue based, and with that I ask that we realize that the true threat to our freedoms is the march of liberalism and those ugly tentacles that would destroy our rural way of life, our families, and our economy.[emphasis added]
I have notified our deputy chair, Jim Eitzen and he will be taking over the reins and the gavel. I have started work on our County convention for March and will turn that over to Jim and others to make that convention highly successful. I trust that we will all pull together behind our acting chair and his committee to continue the outstanding work of Otter Tail County.
As always best to you, God's peace and thank you for the opportunity to work with and for you!!
Sue
As I said in the opening paragraph, Mary is one of my favorite conservative legislators so I won't pretend to be unbiased. That said, Ms. Nelson has the right to challenge my friend if she chooses. The purpose of this post is to simply tell both ladies that this race is now on my radar screen so they'd better play nice. Think Reagan's Eleventh Commandment . (PS- That goes for associates or supporters, too.)
Since Ms. Nelson brought it up, I'll pay attention to whether she runs an issues-oriented campaign. I hope she does.
Finally, one of the reasons I like Mary is because of the leadership role she's taken in defending the First Amendment in the context of fighting the DFL's forced unionization scheme. Mary has fought the right fight against a formidable opponent because it's the right fight to pick. Mary, along with Hollee Saville, were the best leaders in the fight to protect small business owners and the First Amendment.
Posted Monday, January 20, 2014 3:45 PM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 20-Jan-14 10:10 PM
What is the reason for the challenge, and how can such a challenge be mounted without criticizing the incumbent-- i.e. a negative campaign?
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 21-Jan-14 01:07 AM
First, I don't know why Ms. Nelson is challenging Rep. Franson. As for how a challenger mounts a challenge "without criticizing the incumbent", that's the challenger's burden. In this instance, I'm simply saying that these ladies shouldn't launch personal attacks against the other. That's the heart of Reagan's Eleventh Commandment. Reagan certainly didn't have a problem with feisty, respectful policy fights.
