The "big shots" over at Heald are having a BIG "pow wow" in the next couple of weeks to decide "the future of Heald".
It appears that Heald is going to lose ALL California financial aid grants and perhaps more important is that student enrollment is dropping off at the rate of 5 to 10 percent a quarter. The admission aka salespeople are having harder and harder time to close the sale.
The word is pretty much out on the street with recent Heald College graduates from the past couple of years unable to find employment going back to their high schools not only telling the students but the faculty as well that Heald is a waste of time and money.
It is amazing how fast your enrollment starts to drop off when people figure it out that the school is worthless.
CCI big shots are telling Heald that they need to "improve profits", "improve the yield" based on the fact that Heald properties were sold off and now being leased back. This means increasing the student to teacher ratio from 35 to 1 up to 45 to 1. Heald instructors will be expected to work many more hours making phone calls and trying to sell the school.
More than one Heald instructor has told Admin "Don't waste your time with me on all this nonsense. Unemployment is looking real attractive and if you need to lay me off then go for it". Heald Admin is finding out that it is almost impossible to find replacement faculty.
The typical student enrollment at a Heald Campus has been around 1000 to 1200 but that looks like it is going to drop to 700 to 900 by Fall 2012.
It is a COMPLETE MESS over at Heald and if the above were not bad enough more than one program is being told by employers of Heald Graduates "Enough is enough. We won't take your graduates anymore". While employer giving negative remarks on SLO (student learning outcomes) is hardly news and has been going on for some time, the attitude of Heald seems to be less accomidating to employers of Heald grads. One former employer of Heald grads told me that Admin really did not seem to care that Heald grads were unemployable.
August 8, 2013 will be the 150th anniversary of Heald and the plans for a big birthday celebration have been canceled as the Administration does not want anyone coming around saying that the NEW Heald is nothing compared to the old Heald.
More than one OLD Heald graduate prior to 1960 tells me that the best thing could happen to Heald is for it to be put out of its misery.