September 14-15, 2013
Sep 14 11:10 Obama's, Kerry's gullibility showing Sep 14 20:42 MNsure adds to Minnesotans' identity theft worries Sep 15 22:30 Enrollment Declines by Silence Dogood, Part 2 Sep 15 00:07 SC Times article raises questions Sep 15 01:14 Affording a numerically-challenged governor Sep 15 10:40 Falling short
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Enrollment Declines by Silence Dogood, Part 2
Enrollment Declines and Trying to Make Lemonade - Part 2
by Silence Dogood
On August 16th, MnSCU reports showed a potential 18.4% decline in FYE enrollment at SCSU as compared to the final enrollment number for Fall 2012. The same data for our regional competitor Minnesota State University - Mankato showed a potential 11.2% decline. So in an apple to apple comparison, SCSU looked MUCH WORSE!
As of 4:30 a.m. on September 13, MnSCU reports showed that the FYE enrollment at SCSU is now down only 8.3%. This is 'good news' when compared to the number reported on August 16th. However, it gets much more depressing when Mankato today is listed as being down by only 0.9%. Both universities increased their enrollment by over 10% over the same time period. Unfortunately, whereas Mankato is going to be nearly flat in enrollment from last fall, SCSU is looking forward to a significant decline in enrollment.
In looking at enrollment, there are two different numbers to consider: Headcount and FYE (Full Year Equivalent). Headcount simply counts each different student who is enrolled. FYE enrollment is the total number of credits generated divided by 30 for undergraduate students and 20 for graduate students. Because part-time students are only taking one or two courses, headcount is always significantly larger than FYE numbers. Since part-time students can significantly inflate the enrollment numbers, budgets are based on FYE rather than headcount. So, if you want to make yourself look better, you talk about headcount. However, budgets are based on FYE so headcount is really just a 'feel good' number for administrators.
Looking more deeply at the data for SCSU, some disturbing trends become apparent. A total of 44% of the FYE enrollment at SCSU is in lower division courses (courses numbered 100 and 200 which are taken by students in their first two years). This in itself is not unusual. However, the lower division enrollment is down 11.5% from the final enrollment number for Fall 2012. This should be disturbing because anyone who understands enrollment trends knows that if the students are not enrolled as lower division students, the upper division enrollment is going to be lower in the following year. When compared with Mankato, their lower division drop in FYE is only 2.1%. Again, Mankato's number is MUCH BETTER than the number at SCSU.
Fall graduate FYE enrollment at SCSU is similarly down 7.8%. Again, comparison with Mankato is disturbing because their graduate FYE enrollment is up 2.4%! MSU - Mankato is used for comparison because historically SCSU and Mankato are of a similar size and have similar histories.
At one time, SCSU bragged about being the second largest university in Minnesota and the 'flagship' university in MnSCU. Based on MnSCU Fall FYE data, Mankato has 6,671 FYE and SCSU has 5,836 FYE so we are behind by 835 FYE. Even if our enrollment increases to 6,366 FYE - the number that we had last fall, we will still be significantly behind Mankato. I'm sure that some will argue that being smaller or second largest is not too bad, but I'm sure that when we were on top we didn't aspire to be second. Some people might call being happy in second place 'spin'.
From Fall 2005 to Fall 2010 as shown in the Figure, the enrollment looks like the stock price for Apple rising with no end in sight. These were the good times.
If the data for fall enrollments at SCSU for Fall 2011 and Fall 2012 (as taken from SCSU's own news releases) are added along with a projected decline of 5% for Fall 2013 (emphatically given by President Potter at the Meet and Confer on September 7, 2013) the Figure shown below is obtained.
President Potter came to SCSU in the summer of 2007, so it is hard to blame or give him much credit for the enrollment for F'07. It's probably even hard to consider that President Potter had much influence over the enrollment trends for the next several years. Enrollment is normally like turning a big ship - it doesn't happen on a dime. However, President Potter has been here six years so clearly the last three years have to be attributed to his administration. Even if the Fall enrollment at SCSU is only down 5% this fall, this follows declines of 5.94% for F'11 and 4.49% for F'12. The cumulative three-year drop is 15.4%! The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that many people are predicting that the enrollment may be down more than 5% and probably likely in the 7-8% range. If the enrollment is down 7-8%, the cumulative three-year drop will be in the range of 18%! Since budgets are based on enrollments plan for some significant cuts moving forward.
So getting back to making lemonade. The old adage, "if life gives you lemons, make lemonade" has been reinterpreted in light of the significant enrollment declines because someone needs to take the blame if enrollments go down - and since Dr. Saffari was dismissed in the Fall of 2011 he is no longer here to blame. So, after the departure of Dr. Saffari, the administration has tried to turn around the decline, which is a big negative, by saying they planned for the decline because they are "right sizing" the university. Sounds like a rationalization to me since there is no written plan guiding the decline nor any new announcements regarding programmatic reductions. So the administrative spin doctors are hard at work. Unfortunately, it is going to take an awful lot of sugar to make the lemons produced by the declining enrollment at SCSU into drinkable lemonade.
Originally posted Sunday, September 15, 2013, revised 18-Oct 6:50 PM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 16-Sep-13 08:08 AM
Seems to me their might be any number of mitigating factors affecting the enrollment numbers. The ending of the second baby boom, affecting all of our K-12 schools recently, is transferred to colleges. The economy being in the tank offers less opportunity to afford college, especially with no guaranteed "better job" available afterwards. And general growth statistics for the areas around the two schools may make one more geographically desirable than the other. Sure, the President SHOULD get the blame or the credit, but Obama has shown that it doesn't have to be so.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 16-Sep-13 08:12 AM
Some of those things undoubtedly have some effect. Still, that doesn't explain everything. SCSU will lose more students this year than all of the other universities combined. That says that there's more to this than demographic trends or the economy.
Comment 2 by Nick at 17-Sep-13 05:27 AM
A major college football coach would get fired if he lost a lot of games, especially at a powerhouse such as the University of Michigan or the University of Alabama. Seems interesting that a college president wouldn't be let go for huge drop in enrollment.
Obama's, Kerry's gullibility showing
This morning, it was announced that the US and Russia had reached an agreement on eliminating Syria's WMD stockpile. According to this post , Syria's WMD stockpile must be eliminated by the middle of 2014:
GENEVA - The United States and Russia have reached an agreement that calls for Syria's arsenal of chemical weapons to be removed or destroyed by the middle of 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday.
Under a 'framework' agreement, international inspectors must be on the ground in Syria by November, Mr. Kerry said, speaking at a news conference with the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey V. Lavrov.
An immediate test of the viability of the accord will come within a week when the Syrian government is to provide a 'comprehensive listing' of its chemical stockpile.
Anyone that thinks Russia will operate in good faith to eliminate Syria's WMDs is delusional or simply lying to the American people. The chances that the Russians will live up to their agreement are about the same as President Obama living up to enforcing every provision in the PPACA or meeting its implementation deadlines.
It's getting tiresome watching this administration getting treated like prison bitches by other nations. Kerry's flippant remark in London opened the door for the Russians. The minute he said that, Putin and Lavrov jumped at the opportunity to use Kerry's statement to keep Assad in power.
At the time Libya offered to get rid of its WMDs, they weren't at war. It's taken 8 years to get Libya's WMD stockpiles under control. They're still finding stockpiles of it.
By comparison, Syria is in the midst of a bloody civil war. Further, they're doing everything to shift their WMDs to new locations. Finally, they're insisting that the US take military strikes off the table before letting the weapon inspectors into their country.
The odds that Syria's WMDs will be gone by July, 2014 are about as high as me getting hit with lightning while holding 2 winning lottery tickets. It's a fiction, just like the community of nations, the Easter Bunny and unicorns are fiction.
UPDATE: Sen. McCain and Sen. Graham aren't conservatives' favorite senators but they're right this time :
'Assad will use the months and months afforded to him to delay and deceive the world using every trick in Saddam Hussein's playbook,' the Republican senators said in a statement. 'It requires a willful suspension of disbelief to see this agreement as anything other than the start of a diplomatic blind alley, and the Obama administration is being led into it by Bashar Assad and [Russian President] Vladimir Putin.'
That's been conservatives' opinion since Secretary Kerry stumbled into this terrible deal last Monday.
Posted Saturday, September 14, 2013 10:00 PM
No comments.
MNsure adds to Minnesotans' identity theft worries
This article should frighten Minnesotans into not using Minnesota's health insurance exchange, aka HIX:
Health exchange officials said Friday that they were notifying about 2,400 insurance agents about a breach involving their Social Security numbers and other private information.
An agency employee inadvertently sent a document containing the information to two employees of a health insurance agency, MNsure spokeswoman Jenni Bowring-McDonough said. The employees deleted the information after they were notified by MNsure, she said.
Predictably, Gov. Dayton tried downplaying this problem:
But Gov. Mark Dayton said Friday that he still had confidence in MNsure's leadership.
"There are going to be mistakes, there are going to be glitches and there's going to be human error, as there is in any enterprise, particularly one like this that's just getting underway," Dayton said. "The breach of privacy was a serious violation...and they'll learn from that," Dayton said.
The publishing of people's Social Security numbers isn't "a glitch." It's the type of stupidity that governments make. There's no reason to think that the HIX was thought through. There's every reason to think that they're throwing this thing together quickly in their attempt to tout this as one of the legislature's and Gov. Dayton's accomplishments. It's nothing of the sort.
Ed Morrissey has more observations in this post :
By the way, does anyone wonder why the agents had their Social Security numbers in the system? MNSure said it was to apply credit for navigator training, which is: a little strange. Why not use something a little less sensitive than a Social Security number, say, an agent license number or a phone number? Did anyone bother to ask why an SSN was necessary? Perhaps Minnesota and other states are in such a rush that these questions aren't being asked, which is yet another reason to have less than full confidence in the security and operation of these systems.
These are the types of mistakes I'd expect from people trying to throw something together in a hurry. When people hurry, mistakes should be expected.
Still, this isn't just a glitch. This is a mistake that might've caused lots of identity theft. That can't be tolerated. If this happened at a private corporation, these people would've been terminated and perp-walked out of the building immediately upon discovery.
Ed's observation is spot on:
The DFL (Democratic Party in MN) will hold legislative hearings on the data breach on September 24th. That's just seven days before Minnesotans without group insurance will be required to put their sensitive identity data into a system without much hope for security .
The individual mandate should be delayed because these security problems aren't close to being resolved. People shouldn't be forced into a situation where their most intimate data isn't secure. If the Obama administration or the Dayton administration put a priority on protecting citizens from this situation, they'd delay implementation until the data is secured.
Posted Saturday, September 14, 2013 8:42 PM
No comments.
SC Times article raises questions
This St. Cloud Times article left me with more questions about the St. Cloud State Police Department than I got answers.
Move-in day at St. Cloud State University this year saw the continuation of a trend of fewer citations issued to St. Cloud State students and fewer issued overall by police.
That's the good news.
There is another trend that causes trouble for university officials and police: The violence associated with crime on and around the campus is on the rise. That escalation has increased the threat to students' safety and stands as the main reason the university is paying the city of St. Cloud $240,000 each of the next three years for three police officers dedicated to patrolling the campus and its surrounding areas.
This article attempts to explain why St. Cloud Mayor Kleis and SCSU President Potter signed an agreement in which St. Cloud State, aka SCSU, pays $240,000 per year for the next 3 years. The article didn't do a good job with that, especially considering the fact that the first St. Cloud Times article, which I wrote about here , was something I'd expect from St. Cloud State's PR department. Here's what was said in the Times' first article:
During the just-completed 2013 move-in weekend, St. Cloud police reported issuing 59 citations, only 11 of which went to university students. That's a huge drop from last year's citations, which totaled 161. More importantly, the 11 citations to students last weekend continued a steady decline in the number of university students contributing to any move-in weekend problems.
Look no further than the latest tool to make the campus neighborhood safer - the St. Cloud Police Department's new Campus Area Police Services officers. Thanks to the university paying salaries and benefits, three city police officers are assigned to the campus area.
Here's the first red flag in the article:
The agreement between the city and university was years in the making and has resulted in critics from St. Cloud State wondering why the university has to spend $720,000 over the next three years for something they believe the city should already be providing.
Three questions leap to mind from that paragraph. First, why didn't Mayor Kleis and President Potter issue a statement when they signed the agreement? They didn't inform the public until after they started taking criticism. Second, if there has been a significant uptick in violent crime in the neighborhoods surrounding St. Cloud State, why didn't that become a subject addressed during a City Council meeting or a Meet & Confer meeting? If students' safety is a high priority and the agreement "was years in the making", why can't anyone from the City Council or the SCSU Faculty Association remember discussing this pressing problem? Third, where was the St. Cloud Times on this? Each day, they publish a crime log in their newspaper. If there was a significant uptick in violent crimes in the neighborhoods closest to the SCSU campus, shouldn't they have written a major expose highlighting this? (Yes, that's a rhetorical question.)
Apparently, the Times is more interested in being President Potter's cheerleader than they're interested in doing their jobs as reporters. Either way, they aren't a newspaper. They're a media outlet.
Those are just the biggest questions raised by this article. If there has been an uptick in violent crimes near campus, why haven't students addressed this during the City Council meeting during open forum? If they didn't do that, they should've said something at a student senate meeting.
'This is the right thing to do and yes, it's money that we have to take out of our budget and yes, it means that the $240,000 a year will not be available for things other people think are important,' he said. 'But this is the safety of our students. This is not noise in the neighborhood. This is a life-and-death matter, and I'm perfectly happy to stand up to any critic and say this is a reasonable choice.'
President Potter's insistence that "it's money we have to take out of our budget" is BS. The primary function of government, whether local, state or federal, is public safety. Period. The neighborhoods surrounding the campus pay tons of property taxes. The homes to the north of campus along the Mississippi River are older homes but they're big homes that pay lots of property taxes. The homes to the west of SCSU's campus are mostly rental properties, meaning they either pay commercial property tax rates or they aren't homesteaded. Either way, it isn't like these properties are churches or government buildings.
If this is the crisis that the article says it is, then the Mayor and City Council should adjust their budget to meet their primary responsibility. Let me repeat that important point: Public safety is the city's primary responsibility. If the city's budget doesn't first address that responsibility, then the budget is a failure.
If this agreement was years in the making, doesn't that suggest that violent crime wasn't addressed during those years? The city and SCSU can't have it both ways. Either the agreement was a knee-jerk reaction to a tragic event last November or it's long been Mayor Kleis's wish that President Potter pay for expanding the police force for years.
Either way, it's questionable public policymaking.
Posted Sunday, September 15, 2013 12:07 AM
No comments.
Affording a numerically-challenged governor
In 2012, I wrote frequently that relying on e-tab revenues to pay the public share of the Vikings stadium was foolish. Last week, Gov. Dayton, the most numerically-challenged governor in Minnesota history, admitted that :
More like a plane crash, Dayton told MPR News.
"The National Transportation Safety Board says that in an airplane crash, there's seldom just one factor, one mistake that is the sole causation, and I would say in this case as well," Dayton said in a recent interview. "You know, there were multiple errors made, and in hindsight, obviously we were terribly wrong. But everything, as far as I know, was done in good faith with the best of intentions."
The NTSB typically identifies who's at fault in plane crashes. A year into e-pulltabs, people are still picking through the pieces, trying to understand what happened.
"We all agreed that we didn't want to use general revenue funds, so this was a new source of revenue, and one that everyone who was involved appeared to believe," said Dayton, who backed a hike in cigarette and corporate taxes to finance the Vikings stadium bonds after it was clear e-pulltabs were falling short.
"These projections were as good as anybody could do."
That last sentence is BS. At the time, I spoke with Dr. John Spry, often regarded as the best tax economist in Minnesota. At the time, Dr. Spry said that revenues could wildly exceed expectations or fall woefully short depending on the definitions that went into the gaming regulations.
During the debate, I also spoke with King Wilson, then the executive director of Allied Charities of Minnesota, explained to me why e-tabs were a disaster waiting to happen :
King Wilson explained that the key to making this work for the charities is tax reform and volume business.
Wilson said that he's been involved in charitable gaming since the late 1980s. Back then, he oversaw a charitable gaming operation in Columbia Heights. At the time, their payout was approaching 86% of revenues. Wilson noted that this operation was depositing approximately $90,000 a month with the higher percentage payout.
More importantly, Wilson said there was a different tax system for charitable gaming operations then. Wilson said that the tax system for charitable gaming changed to a progressive tax system in 1989. As a result, his operation was forced to a smaller payout percentage to the players.
It was forced to a smaller payout rate because, if 86% of revenues go to payouts, another 8% goes to taxes and another 8% goes to other expenses, that's 102% of revenues. As a result of the payout drop, monthly revenues dropped to $45,000 per month. With fewer winners, sales volume plummeted.
That's the information that was known then. Here's what they've learned since approving e-tabs:
Bar owners dismiss e-pulltabs as not worth the cost and hassle to install. Gamblers say the electronic games just aren't that much fun.
Gov. Dayton didn't want to hear from bar owners, restaurant operators or the director of Minnesota's biggest charitable gambling organization. Instead, he listened to an organization committed to expanding gambling in Minnesota for the projections. Apparently, Gov. Dayton didn't understand that the organization's projections were the rosiest of rosy scenarios. That isn't surprising since he's been numerically challenged since the gubernatorial campaign. That year, he submitted his tax increase proposals to the Minnesota Department of Revenue 3 times for scoring. the best he did was a $1,000,000,000 deficit.
We can't afford a governor that's this numerically and policy-challenged. His Vikings stadium funding mechanism was off by the financial equivalent of several solar systems. His tax increases for this year are already chasing iconic Minnesota businesses into other states.
On Main Street, that's known as a disaster. In the DFL, that's known as Gov. Dayton.
Posted Sunday, September 15, 2013 1:14 AM
Comment 1 by walter hanson at 15-Sep-13 02:11 PM
Gary:
Lets remember to use the example that a large number of crashes are pilot error. Dayton should admit what is obvious. He made big errors and that is why we have the mess and no other cause is worth mentioning.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Falling short
John Bodette's column is interesting in that he talks about Gannett policy regarding social media. This part of the guidelines caught my attention:
In addition to the guidelines set forth above, Gannett journalists should always abide by the Principles of Ethical Conduct for Journalists in their use of social media. These principles are centered on the following themes:
- Seeking and reporting the truth in a truthful way.
- Serving the public interest.
- Exercising fair play.
- Maintaining independence.
- Acting with integrity.
- Be transparent in social media; always make clear that you work for Gannett or for your local Gannett news organization.
It isn't difficult to document proof that the St. Cloud Times frequently doesn't live up to the first 4 criteria. Reporting "the truth in a truthful way" includes telling the whole truth, not just the truths that fit the storyline. When the Times published an article about how smooth move-in weekend went at SCSU this fall, they talked about how the number if incidents dropped from 161 in 2012 to just 59 this fall. Somehow, they omitted the part about a significant uptick in violent crimes around the SCSU campus.
Next, the Times isn't serving the public interest by turning a blind eye towards the transcript discrepancies or the dropping enrollment fiasco. The Times hasn't published anything about the dropping enrollment and the budget implications it'll have. Running a story from a Twin Cities source about the transcript story isn't exactly leaving no stone unturned in the quest for the truth, either.
Why hasn't the Times reported on these important local issues? The Potter administration benefited from the Times either by a) publishing a fluff piece on the CAPS/move-in weekend story, b) not reporting on SCSU's declining enrollment or c) underreporting the transcript story. It's certainly fair to ask why the slant for each of those articles tipped in the Potter administration's favor.
I've talked with numerous professors at SCSU who think that the Times is President Potter's other PR department. They think that the Times' reporting is that slanted.
Writing things that are biased certainly isn't the way to act with integrity. Asking tough questions is acting with integrity, espcially knowing that it might a public figure's ire. Writing articles that consistently cast a public figure in a positive light isn't acting with integrity. It certainly doesn't maintain the newspaper's or the reporter's independence.
If the St. Cloud Times won't actively investigate stories important to St. Cloud, the people will eventually start ignoring them. I think that's already started, due mostly to the Times' indifferent attitude towards informing people.
Posted Sunday, September 15, 2013 10:40 AM
Comment 1 by walter hanson at 15-Sep-13 02:08 PM
Gary:
Now if only Michelle Bachman ran SCSU instead of President Potter then they will report every bad thing. Oh that might explain why they can't focus on SCSU right now. Maybe next January their 200 reporters and staff dedicated to covering Michelle might turn to covering SCSU.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Comment 2 by Gary Gross at 15-Sep-13 09:11 PM
Actually, the Times doesn't have a reporter assigned to Michele. They're anti-Michele because they let tons of liberal activists write tons of LTEs that don't bear a resemblance to the truth.
