After it was reported at the end of June that the University of Missouri, crippled by a plunge in enrollment after its debacle over charges of racism in 2015, was attempting to recoup its losses by renting dorm rooms to football weekend visitors, there is now this: The New York Times reports that the university is temporarily closing seven dormitories and cutting over 400 positions, including those of some non-tenured faculty members.
You might expect that the decline in enrollment occurred primarily among whites, after the flimsily-supported racism charges of 2015 resulted in the resignation of the university’s president; The Daily Wire reported, “Many parents and alumni responded by refusing to contribute money to the public university. For example, donations to its athletics department dropped 72% last year.”
But here’s the big surprise: as the Times notes: “Students of all races have shunned Missouri, but the drop in freshman enrollment last fall was strikingly higher among blacks, at 42%, than among whites, at 21%.”
Mun Choi, the new University of Missouri System president, told the Times, “The general consensus was that it was because of the aftermath of what happened in November 2015. There were students from both in-state and out-of-state that just did not apply, or those who did apply but decided not to attend.”
Things have gotten so precarious that the library is asking for donations to buy 400 books.