Saturday, August 14, 2010

US Government Tests Jesuit University

The Chapel of Mary and Joseph at W.J.U.
Wheeling Jesuit University is the only Ohio Valley college that failed the U.S. Department of Education's 2009 financial responsibility test. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, a total of 321 colleges failed the test. That number includes both nonprofit and for-profit colleges. More than 97 percent of students at WJU depend on financial aid to afford college, and that money comes from endowment's given to the university from alumni, board members and more. But, the downturn in the economy made it harder for people to donate money to the school. That is why WJU made the cut. "Our endowment is small. If the endowment is large, we take most of the financial aid packaging for students from the interest rate on the endowment. If we don't have a big endowment, then we use some our operating capital to do the same thing," Interim President of WJU Sister Francis Thrailkill said. 
Link (here) to the full article at WTRF

4 comments:

Teresa said...

Why is the government sticking their nose in colleges financial soundness? Is this the beginning of our government trying to takeover colleges too?

I agree, that WJU needs to get their finances in order, but I just don't think that its the government's responsibility to babysit colleges like this. This is yet one more example of how the country is becoming a nanny state.

Joseph Fromm said...

Teresa,
Were you reading my mind?
JMJ
Joe

Anonymous said...

Is the university taking government funds? I would hope the government would be checking into how the money is used and financial soundness of the institution.

TonyD said...

A society may decide to support education or not. It may further decide to monitor it excessively or not.

So how do we, as Catholics, respond to this reality?