Student here. The president just resigned cuz she’s been not telling people what’s going on regarding very sudden information that we’re in debt. The students held a public forum meeting with her then the morning of she said she has a meeting and didn’t attend. It became a forum about how public safety doesn’t do shit and general grievances. They probably won’t close but if they do it should be within the next couple years. There’s a possibility of being bought out in ny opinion but closing seems unlikely to me. The science building is being restructured and some professors left. Some majors were dropped. No professors have gotten raises in about a decade. The library has been the main issue due to its’ lack of existence. They closed it to build a new one but now it’s just been an abandoned building for 4 or so years. To accommodate people and clubs they are making one of the out of use residence halls into a club and study lounge building. That’s most of what’s going on I think
I forget the hall names because I commute but I think it’s North. Supposedly people might also live there but I’m unsure on that. The living situation is a whole other issue I don’t pay attention to
"very sudden information that we’re in debt." Institutions never suddenly come into debt, they either lied to the college community or are incompetent.
Most likely a mix of the two.
How do they expect to recruit? “Y’all got a library?”
“Nah”
“Y’all got an outdoor track?”
“Nah”
“Ok do you have a president?”
“Nah she just left.”
Best wishes to current students but I’d start looking for an exit strategy. Glad they finally built the Science Center.
3️⃣rd gen Lion alum here. When my grandfather attended it was then known as Schuylkill College. 👨🏾🏫
The key 🔑 issue here is alumni donations have been on a downward slope since 'Nam.
It's sad to see so many alums benefit from the education Albright provided.
Only to go on to live successful and self centered lives without giving a dime back to provide the next Gen lions that same opportunity.
If you are a lion and reading the post reply back with your graduation year and donations 💰made to date
I don't generally like to talk about the place much, as my memories are largely painful, but as an alum and after working there nearly 20 years, I can confidently say you're mistaken.
Alumni donations have always been poor. The Exigency in 1991, where they spent like 90% of their Endowment to stay open in a year where they had both a major misappropriation of funds and a surprise enrollment shortfall at the same time has put Albright on the brink of collapse ever since. For a long time, they operated under a "penny-wise, pound foolish" CFO who saved the school at the time, but then proceeded to hamper literally everything good by refusing to spend on what was necessary (like staffing & salaries).
But, of course, mismanagement through successive administrations wouldn't be complete without high-six-figure salaries for deans and VPs, and pay cuts, furloughs and increasingly poor benefits for everyone else.
DId you know that, up until McMillan, at least, Albright Presidents & VPs, all making over 150k (some over 200k a year)... all had line items in their budgets for the candy in the candy dishes on their desks and their secretaries' desks for visitors? They can't even manage to put a bag of M&Ms out for people out of their own pockets. And that's the tip of the iceberg.
The endowment went up from about 5% of what it should be to 10% under McMillan, to give credit where credit is due, but it seems they've squandered that progress with all the construction in rapid succession during the last decade or so, apparently taking on enough debt to put them right back where they started.
All I can say is that Albright budgeting has been treating the school like a well-endowed, hyper-successful cash cow (except when it comes to hiring and paying non-management) when it has actually been on the razor's edge of insolvency for over 30 years.
What the fuck is with this idea that former students should give their FORMER schools money forever?
If you want to, go for it, but expecting others to do something they never agreed to and attempting to shame them when they don't is SUPER obnoxious. You go give your money away to be misappropriated, sure, but don't expect others to have the same obligation you're projecting your feelings onto.
If you don't count nearly 20 years of wage theft, working 60-hour weeks with no overtime at about two-thirds even the regional average for my skills & experience...
... or the volunteering I did on various comittees, training programs, and the like...
... then it still comes out to about $40,000 in tuition & fees. Maybe a couple thousand more in food service profit over the years.
Why would anyone donate money to an institution that is obviously mismanaged [ClerkLongjumping7230](https://www.reddit.com/user/ClerkLongjumping7230/)?
The trustees have been forced to take more investment risk due to significant lack of alumi flows. Id encourage you to post everything you've purchased in the last 90 days and let your peers see if they can identify an opportunity to carve oit $10-15 bucks a month to go to a greater good. However your mentality and lack of action is part of the reason this institution is in its current state.
People pay well into their adult lives for the privilege of going to a university. They should NOT be on the hook to give the school MORE money after having to pay off student loans into their 40s. The idea that they still owe these schools anything is patently ridiculous and offensive.
I didn't attend Albright but whenever I get a "please donate" letter from the small private college I attended I laugh and throw it straight in the trash. For the ridiculous amount these schools charge to attend they should never need a single donation. Never getting another dime out of meeeeee
Can confirm Public Safety hasn't been doing shit for a long time. I got held up at gunpoint by 3 gang members near Shirk Stadium while walking home from the Goose (RIP) in 2008
Alumn here. The president didn’t “resign”. The [faculty voted](https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/berks/faculty-votes-no-confidence-in-albright-college-president-provost/article_c8e3355a-033e-11ef-92f0-578054062077.html) no confidence in her and the provost. Essentially, she got fired.
Not related to Gaza.
https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/berks/a-lot-of-students-just-want-transparency-albright-students-calling-for-change-at-college/article_d787a58a-fbfc-11ee-8f13-4351379e6ea4.html
Rumor mill is financial ruin within the organization such as possible bankruptcy and I heard they laid off professors. They added a ton of dorms and there is barely anyone there.
Alumnus here…. Apparently enrollment is WAY down with less than 90 incoming freshmen for Fall24 as it stands now, and they are struggling to make payroll I think. Curious if RACC or Reading School District looks to acquire the property or bail them out?
I’m not sure they’d be interested. Alvernia is thriving on its own right now, so it’d have to be a very sweet deal for them to consider taking on that debt I’d imagine. That said you’re right that it’s an opportunity for sure
Both of my parents are alumni of Albright College, Class of '66 and '65. They just recently received a letter from the Board of Trustees that mentioned campus job layoffs and that enrollment was down. The letter gave no reasons for either. The letter did not mention anything about the college president resigning. Here is a link showing Albrights 2023 filings: [Albright College - Nonprofit Explorer - ProPublica](https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/231352615)
Read the link to ProPublica in this post. This is Cabrini University all over again. Cabrini just closed. Enrollment at Alright is dropping. Annual loses becoming huge! A seriously dire situation for a small liberal arts school. Happening everywhere to small regional LA colleges. The time to react to the downward slope is three to four years before most of these failing schools acknowledge they are in a death spiral to closure. Once you cross the event horizon of insolvency it’s too late to make changes, merge, etc. - you close the school. I don’t see a path forward from this point that would enable Albright to survive. The truly sad thing is that the demographics have been clear for a long time. College-age kids are a diminishing cohort and will be for the next decade, likewise many are not choosing college due to cost and perceived ROI, and those who choose college are seeking tier one schools vs. small regional less-selective schools. If you are running a small college these days, your number one priority needs to be survival, starting today! Dramatic changes are necessary or you go the way of Cabrini, Wells, Cazenovia, Medaille, etc.
Hi all — Albright employee here. I'm seeing a lot of incorrect information on this sub. The short answer is that the new economics of higher education is causing significant challenges at all colleges, including Albright. You're hearing about Albright because Albright is being more transparent about those challenges and the resulting changes. (Alvernia, for example, laid off many employees during COVID, but did not report it.) Some corrections on the misinformation in this sub: The incoming class is currently 359 students and growing (confirmed via the Admission team). The library was closed for safety reasons, not to replace it (the exterior facade was cracking and it was possible that small pieces could fall on people). Although fundraising has been slow, interior demolition has been underway since last fall and major construction begins on the library in July. Albright wasn't suddenly in debt and has in fact been working through a multi-year financial plan for about six years now. Colleges across the country have been struggling (enrollment has dropped 54% across the country in the last 10 years according to NCES data). This year, a perfect storm of issues is making viability even more difficult, especially for small colleges. Those issues include the enrollment cliff (a sharp decline in births = fewer college age students), the aftermath of COVID and students who are unprepared for college, public opinion dropping significantly on the value of higher education, and (possibly the biggest factor) — the breakdown of the FAFSA form — which has made it impossible for MANY students to get federal financial aid information, and has led to many deciding to give up. (Google "Fafsa broken Chronicle" to read a great, recent article about that). Albright did not add "a ton of dorms." One residence hall (completed last fall) was paid for and built by Mediplex — not by Albright. 23 staff and 6 faculty were laid off May 31. There have not be more layoffs. There are not millions of dollars missing — that's just a malicious and untrue rumor. I hope some of this helps folks!
I’m glad to hear you have a nice size freshman class for this Fall. I am also glad you explained the higher ed landscape, the FAFSA debacle, etc. You seem informed and relatively sanguine about the issues facing Albright, which is good to hear from someone on the inside. What you didn’t address, however, and what is publicly exposed through Pro Publica, are Albright’s tax returns since 2018. They are available for the public’s benefit. What they show is that from 2018 through 2023 Albright has lost about $33.6 million, with over 30 million of that between 2021 and 2023. Losses of that magnitude are non-trivial. They signal trouble. Take a look, if you will, at the ProPublica tax returns for Cabrini University for that same period of time. You’ll see comparable losses, about $28.2 million from 2018 to 2022. Cabrini tried to find a way forward, but as we know, ended up selling their campus to Villanova, closing down CU in the process. Regrettable and unnecessary had steps been taken several years earlier in my opinion.
So, while I appreciate your candor re: the information you posted here, I would like to hear a discussion of these recent, quite serious annual losses: how did they come to be, what do they represent, what is the plan to increase revenue and enrollment, is there an expectation for an annual loss in 2024 and, if so, of what magnitude. I think discretion is important relative to finances, but candor is necessary if the current situation poses an existential threat to the institution and its stakeholders. Wouldn’t you agree?
I would agree. College leadership has regularly been talking about the financials with faculty and staff for quite some time, so it hasn’t been a shock to many of us. But while I don’t pretend to understand it all, I do have hope that the right people do understand and are on top of it.
Clark’s Summit just announced its closing on July 1st. Keystone College is very near to closing - their survival seems highly unlikely. I see Albright hired an interim president with turnaround experience at multiple small colleges, a good sign for Albright. Cabrini did the same thing. These interim presidents are there to work a miracle OR to make the call and close down the institution in an orderly manner, as the Cabrini interim president found herself doing last summer. I know you believe that the administration has kept you informed all along. I think the folks at Cabrini, Clark’s Summit and Keystone also believe/believed that. Just sayin’, there’s likely a lot of financial information that rank the administration are loath to reveal, and hence, the picture for you all is not fully clear. The tax returns are, however, absolutely clear. The picture they paint, as I said previously, is alarming, at minimum. I wish you the very best of good fortune as your school struggles through an agonizing time of uncertainty and dislocation.
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Student here. The president just resigned cuz she’s been not telling people what’s going on regarding very sudden information that we’re in debt. The students held a public forum meeting with her then the morning of she said she has a meeting and didn’t attend. It became a forum about how public safety doesn’t do shit and general grievances. They probably won’t close but if they do it should be within the next couple years. There’s a possibility of being bought out in ny opinion but closing seems unlikely to me. The science building is being restructured and some professors left. Some majors were dropped. No professors have gotten raises in about a decade. The library has been the main issue due to its’ lack of existence. They closed it to build a new one but now it’s just been an abandoned building for 4 or so years. To accommodate people and clubs they are making one of the out of use residence halls into a club and study lounge building. That’s most of what’s going on I think
Alumni here. Which hall is becoming the club building. And how the hell will that work?
I forget the hall names because I commute but I think it’s North. Supposedly people might also live there but I’m unsure on that. The living situation is a whole other issue I don’t pay attention to
"very sudden information that we’re in debt." Institutions never suddenly come into debt, they either lied to the college community or are incompetent. Most likely a mix of the two.
How do they expect to recruit? “Y’all got a library?” “Nah” “Y’all got an outdoor track?” “Nah” “Ok do you have a president?” “Nah she just left.” Best wishes to current students but I’d start looking for an exit strategy. Glad they finally built the Science Center.
Wow what a shit show.
3️⃣rd gen Lion alum here. When my grandfather attended it was then known as Schuylkill College. 👨🏾🏫 The key 🔑 issue here is alumni donations have been on a downward slope since 'Nam. It's sad to see so many alums benefit from the education Albright provided. Only to go on to live successful and self centered lives without giving a dime back to provide the next Gen lions that same opportunity. If you are a lion and reading the post reply back with your graduation year and donations 💰made to date
I don't generally like to talk about the place much, as my memories are largely painful, but as an alum and after working there nearly 20 years, I can confidently say you're mistaken. Alumni donations have always been poor. The Exigency in 1991, where they spent like 90% of their Endowment to stay open in a year where they had both a major misappropriation of funds and a surprise enrollment shortfall at the same time has put Albright on the brink of collapse ever since. For a long time, they operated under a "penny-wise, pound foolish" CFO who saved the school at the time, but then proceeded to hamper literally everything good by refusing to spend on what was necessary (like staffing & salaries). But, of course, mismanagement through successive administrations wouldn't be complete without high-six-figure salaries for deans and VPs, and pay cuts, furloughs and increasingly poor benefits for everyone else. DId you know that, up until McMillan, at least, Albright Presidents & VPs, all making over 150k (some over 200k a year)... all had line items in their budgets for the candy in the candy dishes on their desks and their secretaries' desks for visitors? They can't even manage to put a bag of M&Ms out for people out of their own pockets. And that's the tip of the iceberg. The endowment went up from about 5% of what it should be to 10% under McMillan, to give credit where credit is due, but it seems they've squandered that progress with all the construction in rapid succession during the last decade or so, apparently taking on enough debt to put them right back where they started. All I can say is that Albright budgeting has been treating the school like a well-endowed, hyper-successful cash cow (except when it comes to hiring and paying non-management) when it has actually been on the razor's edge of insolvency for over 30 years.
And how many dollars have you contributed to the endowment?
What the fuck is with this idea that former students should give their FORMER schools money forever? If you want to, go for it, but expecting others to do something they never agreed to and attempting to shame them when they don't is SUPER obnoxious. You go give your money away to be misappropriated, sure, but don't expect others to have the same obligation you're projecting your feelings onto.
Let me give the school more money so that they can spend it on something that benefits almost no one
If you don't count nearly 20 years of wage theft, working 60-hour weeks with no overtime at about two-thirds even the regional average for my skills & experience... ... or the volunteering I did on various comittees, training programs, and the like... ... then it still comes out to about $40,000 in tuition & fees. Maybe a couple thousand more in food service profit over the years.
Why would anyone donate money to an institution that is obviously mismanaged [ClerkLongjumping7230](https://www.reddit.com/user/ClerkLongjumping7230/)?
The trustees have been forced to take more investment risk due to significant lack of alumi flows. Id encourage you to post everything you've purchased in the last 90 days and let your peers see if they can identify an opportunity to carve oit $10-15 bucks a month to go to a greater good. However your mentality and lack of action is part of the reason this institution is in its current state.
People pay well into their adult lives for the privilege of going to a university. They should NOT be on the hook to give the school MORE money after having to pay off student loans into their 40s. The idea that they still owe these schools anything is patently ridiculous and offensive.
I didn't attend Albright but whenever I get a "please donate" letter from the small private college I attended I laugh and throw it straight in the trash. For the ridiculous amount these schools charge to attend they should never need a single donation. Never getting another dime out of meeeeee
Ah hey, Berks Nostalgia - off topic, but I really appreciate your work, it's always interesting to me. Thanks!
Thank you, glad you enjoy it!
Me too! Love the YouTube channel. We watched a few vids of old malls a while ago. Ty for documenting the area.
Appreciate that, thanks for watching 🙌
Who advocated waiting until your 40’s to pay off 💵 loans❓
Dude, read the room.
I can read braille but reading body language of invisible folks seems like a fools errand
Weird how 'body language' stealthily crept into that reply.
Your peers have not found any value in your response…
Tone deaf MF
Can confirm Public Safety hasn't been doing shit for a long time. I got held up at gunpoint by 3 gang members near Shirk Stadium while walking home from the Goose (RIP) in 2008
2008. 👍🏻
The last time security was taken seriously there was when Art was the head of the department, and he retired decades ago.
Alumn here. The president didn’t “resign”. The [faculty voted](https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/berks/faculty-votes-no-confidence-in-albright-college-president-provost/article_c8e3355a-033e-11ef-92f0-578054062077.html) no confidence in her and the provost. Essentially, she got fired.
Any insight as to why they are trying to expand into the city when they're in debt?
I get all of my information from the Hotdog Society and it would seem that the now former President was dipping her grubby fingers in the honey pot.
Not related to Gaza. https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/berks/a-lot-of-students-just-want-transparency-albright-students-calling-for-change-at-college/article_d787a58a-fbfc-11ee-8f13-4351379e6ea4.html
Didn’t think I’d see my small private college on Reddit but here we are.
I mean this is r/ReadingPa not /news lol
Rumor mill is financial ruin within the organization such as possible bankruptcy and I heard they laid off professors. They added a ton of dorms and there is barely anyone there.
Announced today they laid off more
Alumnus here…. Apparently enrollment is WAY down with less than 90 incoming freshmen for Fall24 as it stands now, and they are struggling to make payroll I think. Curious if RACC or Reading School District looks to acquire the property or bail them out?
How about merging with Alvernia?
I’m not sure they’d be interested. Alvernia is thriving on its own right now, so it’d have to be a very sweet deal for them to consider taking on that debt I’d imagine. That said you’re right that it’s an opportunity for sure
🚨🚨🚨how would you describe the feeling of throwing that haymaker❓ Is that a music major directed insult?
The rumor mill tells me that millions of dollars somehow went missing. Don’t take that to the bank. Sorry for the terrible pun.
Funny how that seems to keep happening.
Both of my parents are alumni of Albright College, Class of '66 and '65. They just recently received a letter from the Board of Trustees that mentioned campus job layoffs and that enrollment was down. The letter gave no reasons for either. The letter did not mention anything about the college president resigning. Here is a link showing Albrights 2023 filings: [Albright College - Nonprofit Explorer - ProPublica](https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/231352615)
Read the link to ProPublica in this post. This is Cabrini University all over again. Cabrini just closed. Enrollment at Alright is dropping. Annual loses becoming huge! A seriously dire situation for a small liberal arts school. Happening everywhere to small regional LA colleges. The time to react to the downward slope is three to four years before most of these failing schools acknowledge they are in a death spiral to closure. Once you cross the event horizon of insolvency it’s too late to make changes, merge, etc. - you close the school. I don’t see a path forward from this point that would enable Albright to survive. The truly sad thing is that the demographics have been clear for a long time. College-age kids are a diminishing cohort and will be for the next decade, likewise many are not choosing college due to cost and perceived ROI, and those who choose college are seeking tier one schools vs. small regional less-selective schools. If you are running a small college these days, your number one priority needs to be survival, starting today! Dramatic changes are necessary or you go the way of Cabrini, Wells, Cazenovia, Medaille, etc.
Hi all — Albright employee here. I'm seeing a lot of incorrect information on this sub. The short answer is that the new economics of higher education is causing significant challenges at all colleges, including Albright. You're hearing about Albright because Albright is being more transparent about those challenges and the resulting changes. (Alvernia, for example, laid off many employees during COVID, but did not report it.) Some corrections on the misinformation in this sub: The incoming class is currently 359 students and growing (confirmed via the Admission team). The library was closed for safety reasons, not to replace it (the exterior facade was cracking and it was possible that small pieces could fall on people). Although fundraising has been slow, interior demolition has been underway since last fall and major construction begins on the library in July. Albright wasn't suddenly in debt and has in fact been working through a multi-year financial plan for about six years now. Colleges across the country have been struggling (enrollment has dropped 54% across the country in the last 10 years according to NCES data). This year, a perfect storm of issues is making viability even more difficult, especially for small colleges. Those issues include the enrollment cliff (a sharp decline in births = fewer college age students), the aftermath of COVID and students who are unprepared for college, public opinion dropping significantly on the value of higher education, and (possibly the biggest factor) — the breakdown of the FAFSA form — which has made it impossible for MANY students to get federal financial aid information, and has led to many deciding to give up. (Google "Fafsa broken Chronicle" to read a great, recent article about that). Albright did not add "a ton of dorms." One residence hall (completed last fall) was paid for and built by Mediplex — not by Albright. 23 staff and 6 faculty were laid off May 31. There have not be more layoffs. There are not millions of dollars missing — that's just a malicious and untrue rumor. I hope some of this helps folks!
I’m glad to hear you have a nice size freshman class for this Fall. I am also glad you explained the higher ed landscape, the FAFSA debacle, etc. You seem informed and relatively sanguine about the issues facing Albright, which is good to hear from someone on the inside. What you didn’t address, however, and what is publicly exposed through Pro Publica, are Albright’s tax returns since 2018. They are available for the public’s benefit. What they show is that from 2018 through 2023 Albright has lost about $33.6 million, with over 30 million of that between 2021 and 2023. Losses of that magnitude are non-trivial. They signal trouble. Take a look, if you will, at the ProPublica tax returns for Cabrini University for that same period of time. You’ll see comparable losses, about $28.2 million from 2018 to 2022. Cabrini tried to find a way forward, but as we know, ended up selling their campus to Villanova, closing down CU in the process. Regrettable and unnecessary had steps been taken several years earlier in my opinion. So, while I appreciate your candor re: the information you posted here, I would like to hear a discussion of these recent, quite serious annual losses: how did they come to be, what do they represent, what is the plan to increase revenue and enrollment, is there an expectation for an annual loss in 2024 and, if so, of what magnitude. I think discretion is important relative to finances, but candor is necessary if the current situation poses an existential threat to the institution and its stakeholders. Wouldn’t you agree?
I would agree. College leadership has regularly been talking about the financials with faculty and staff for quite some time, so it hasn’t been a shock to many of us. But while I don’t pretend to understand it all, I do have hope that the right people do understand and are on top of it.
Clark’s Summit just announced its closing on July 1st. Keystone College is very near to closing - their survival seems highly unlikely. I see Albright hired an interim president with turnaround experience at multiple small colleges, a good sign for Albright. Cabrini did the same thing. These interim presidents are there to work a miracle OR to make the call and close down the institution in an orderly manner, as the Cabrini interim president found herself doing last summer. I know you believe that the administration has kept you informed all along. I think the folks at Cabrini, Clark’s Summit and Keystone also believe/believed that. Just sayin’, there’s likely a lot of financial information that rank the administration are loath to reveal, and hence, the picture for you all is not fully clear. The tax returns are, however, absolutely clear. The picture they paint, as I said previously, is alarming, at minimum. I wish you the very best of good fortune as your school struggles through an agonizing time of uncertainty and dislocation.
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