cur-mud-geon:
anyone who hates hypocrisy and pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habit of pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorous manner
The morning newspaper (article by Erica Perez-Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 8/29) reveals that MATC has fallen about $1.3 Million below its expected revenue due to shortfalls in enrollment for the 2007-2008 year.
MATC’s CFO, Michael Sargent, says this is caused by enrollments being down by 3% to 4% from last fall. Theresa Barry, MATC VP of Student Services, went on to indicate that 3% of last semester’s students didn’t re-enroll and the addition of new students dropped by 1% from budgeted expectations.
Board member Lauren Baker, bless her heart, suggests that this trend needs to be thoroughly examined and vows that she’ll cause this examination to occur in the coming months. MATC enrollment has decreased 17% since the 1997-1998 year, by the way.
The first question is: Why? The next question is: Why have we consistently paid more and more every year for less and less?
There are several things that cry out from this article and its revelations:
If students are migrating to private sector institutions where government subsidies probably do not exist or at least not in the degree found at MATC, can we begin to surmise there are shortcomings in quality and/or type of programs being offered by MATC?
If 3% of the prior semester’s students disenrolled, part of that was probably circumstantial but some had to be related to the experience and perceived shortcomings.
The downward trend over the past decade suggests that MATC may’ve lost sight of the needs of the community; both students and employers.
Has MATC spent too much money and too much energy in becoming another two-year degree institution when it was conceived as a technical college providing shorter courses more likely to result in fulfilling the needs of the community and the employers?
This whole thing, to my curmudgeonly mind, smacks of an egocentric institution that well may’ve lost its bearings while pursuing what it dreamed of being versus delivering what its publics needed.
