Worcester Business Journal

30 2020 Economic Forecast • Worcester Business Journal • www.wbjournal.com C entral Massachusetts colleges and universities face a variety of pressures in the coming year, with shifting enrollment trends to new leadership to the need to impress incoming students. Falling community college enrollments The Great Recession was a boon to few, but among them were community colleges, which saw enrollments rise when people lost their jobs and looked for a new degree or job training. With better economic times, community colleges have been hurt. At Worcester's Quinsigamond Community College, full-time-equivalent enrollment fell 18% from 2012 to 2018, according to Massachusetts state data. At Gardner's Mount Wachusett Community College, it was 22% over that time. With the state's financial backing, community colleges aren't soon to go insolvent – a concern among small, private liberal arts schools, in particular – but difficult financial choices may be on the horizon. Change at the top for two Worcester schools Two Worcester colleges will have new presidents in 2020: Clark University and MCPHS University. At Clark, David Angel will retire in June after a decade as president and 33 years at the school. He previously served as provost and vice president of academic affairs from 2003 to 2010, and first joined Clark as a professor of geography in 1987. At MCPHS, Charles Monahan, the Boston-based school's fifth presi- dent, is retiring Jan. 15. Monahan, a Worcester native, has led the school since 1997 and will be succeeded on an interim basis by Richard Lessard, the school's executive vice president, chief operating officer, and chief financial officer. A small building boom For colleges with the financial means and demand for space, a number of construction projects are now under- way. College of the Holy Cross in Worcester leads the way, with both the $107-million Prior Performing Arts Center and the $30-million Joanne Chouinard-Luth Recreation and Wellness Center under construction. Both are being built thanks to eight-fig- ure donations from their eponymous donors. At Worcester Polytechnic Institute, work began this fall on a new $80-million building for academic, research and student services space. It is slated to open in January 2022. Assumption College in Worcester is building a 41,000-square-foot health sciences building for its new nursing program and other health studies. It is slated to open for the fall 2020 semester and will be the second major addition to Assumption's campus in the past few years, joining the Tsotsis Family Academic Center, which opened in 2017. W Changing with the times Colleges & universities will continue to be a mainstay of the Central Mass. economy in 2020, although shifting trends pose new challenges BY GRANT WELKER Worcester Business Journal News Editor Top college & university stories in 2019 >> Boom times for Central Mass. col- lege endowments In 2016, the College of the Holy Cross gained $83 million in investment income in its endowment. That's about 16 times greater than the entire endow- ments of Anna Maria College or Becker College. Such is often the financial reality in higher education today, with those three Central Massachusetts colleges demonstrating how wealthier institu- tions benefit from hefty finance accounts and generous donors, while smaller schools face what some in the industry warn may be insurmountable challenges in the years ahead. "It illustrates a perverse dichotomy in higher education that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer," said Scott Latham, a business professor at UMass Lowell, who has been studying endow- ments and the higher education indus- try. Colleges with smaller endowments may be getting relatively poorer com- pared to deep-pocketed peers, but with the economy providing higher invest- ment returns – and more donor sup- port – nearly every Central Massachusetts college has seen endow- ments grow in the past decade or more. Holy Cross' endowment has bal- looned by $364 million in the last 15 years, and endowments at Clark University and Worcester Polytechnic Institute have expanded by more than $200 million each, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That has helped pump mil- lions more into student financial aid, as well as support for faculty positions and other areas. Endowments aren't the only source of financial aid. But nearly half of endowment spending supports finan- cial aid, and for the largest endow- ments, a school's ability to defray stu- dent costs becomes significant. Endowments can be a bragging point, a factor in college rankings, a consider- ation for presidential tenures, and a reassuring sign to prospective students and parents a college is on solid finan- cial ground. Central Massachusetts colleges that used to treat endowments as practically an afterthought have been forced to make fundraising a high priority, including public institutions previously relying on state funding for the bulk of their income. That's no longer the case, and schools have adjusted, including at Framingham State University, where today's endowment of more than $40 million was $1.7 million in 2004. At Worcester State University, Tom McNamara, the endowment of $170,000 about two decades ago has grown to more than $30 million, thanks to a state matching program. MCPHS President Charles Monahan The proposed $107-million Prior Performing Arts Center is under construction at the College of the Holy Cross. Luis Pedraja (center), president of Quinsigamond Community College The College of the Holy Cross C O L L E G E S & U N I V E R S I T I E S P H O T O / Q U I N S I G A M O N D C O M M U N I T Y C O L L E G E P H O T O / M C P H S U N I V E R S I T Y R E N D E R I N G / C O L L E G E O F T H E H O L Y C R O S S P H O T O / B R A D K A N E

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