University Business - April 2008 - (Page 27)

VIEWPOINT Joining Together, Catholics Can Compete A proposal for merging ﬁve Philadelphia-area institutions By Thomas C. Celli ROM MEDIA STORIES TO conversations at cocktail parties, news has spread of the difﬁcult situation facing private higher education and the decisions by oﬃcials at institutions such as Harvard, Princeton, and Swarthmore College (Pa.) to give away undergraduate educations to middle- and upper-middle-class families—essentially making the bachelor’s degree free. Institutions with endowments of $400 million or more are being pressured by constituents and many in the public realm to give away the educations that those endowments are capable of providing. Congress may enter the fray soon. Small, private liberal arts colleges face an increasingly bleak future without the endowments or the access to capital to compete for the best students. They will be relegated to pursuing prospective students with lower SAT scores and oﬀering higher and higher discount rates in order to ﬁll seats. I believe we will see many small, underendowed liberal arts colleges vanish from the landscape. The idea at the center of this column emerged from an acquired knowledge of the value of certain assets at private liberal arts colleges that are being overlooked— that is, the value of their real estate. While this proposal centers on ﬁve institutions in suburban Philadelphia, the same idea could be applied in suburban Cleveland, rural Pennsylvania, or elsewhere where like-minded institutions are geographically close to one another and can follow patterns already established. Speciﬁcally, I want to propose the possible merger of ﬁve Catholic institutions in the northern F while highly selective (rich) schools are making it free. What of those in the middle? What tuition and dropout repercussions will result from the subprime troubles of Sallie Mae and a few large commercial lenders? MERGER POSSIBILITIES Recently the 30-acre campus of one Philadelphia K-12 school was sold for $90 million. While this may seem an inﬂated price, real estate experts do say it was worth at least $30 million. Likewise, The American College in Bryn Mawr, Pa., which provides ﬁnancial services education, sold a campus of 35 acres for $30 million. Just averaging these two institutions indicates that an acre of campus land in this area of Philadelphia is essentially worth $1 million. An examination of the Catholic nature of the education oﬀered by Chestnut Hill College, Rosemont College, Cabrini College, Gwynedd-Mercy College, and Immaculata University shows that all of these institutions, although founded by diﬀerent Catholic congregations, have the same goal in mind—to provide excellence in Catholic higher education. My suggestion is that these institutions merge. Thomas C. Celli is president of Pittsburgh-based Celli-Flynn Brennan Architects and Planners (www.cfbarchitects.com), which has worked with many U.S. colleges and universities on architectural design and strategic and master planning. The ﬁrm’s Total Sphere planning team aids institutions with services that include enrollment strategies, walkabouts, pricing studies, and business strategies. Public institutions are leading the charge on price, while highly selective (rich) schools are making it free. suburbs of Philadelphia. Having accomplished planning work and architectural design work for several institutions in eastern Pennsylvania, those at my ﬁrm have come to understand the value of the real estate assets these suburbs provide. If Catholics are to continue providing a value-centered education and competing with the highly selective liberal arts colleges, then they must take steps now, while some are still ﬁnancially healthy, to prepare quickly for growing competition. Community colleges and state universities are leading the charge on price, universitybusiness.com April 2008 | 27 http://www.cfbarchitects.com http://universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - April 2008

University Business - April 2008
Contents
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Editor's Note
Stats Watch
Sense of Place
Viewpoint
Future Shock
On The Hill
Facilities Focus
Independent Outlook
Ready, Set, Respond
Small Steps to Safety
Admissions
Lecture Capture: A Fresh Look
Internet Technology
What's New
Calendar of Events
End Note

University Business - April 2008