Loading summary
Transcript137 lines
- [00:00]
Margo Gray
The second it gets warm outside, I convince myself I need a whole new wardrobe and end up with a pile of clothes I never actually wear pieces that looked great online but felt cheap in real life. Quince is the one brand that helped me break that cycle. My new silk pants. They've already become a wardrobe staple. They're comfortable, stylish and made to last, so I know they'll be back in rotation next summer. Everything with quince is priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find at similar brands. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen, Quintz gives you luxury without the markup. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. Treat your closet to a little summer glow. Up with quints go to quince.com campus for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C E dot com campus to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com campus want to pull off the season's freshest trends?
- [01:14]
Victoria Mayorga
You just need the right shoes. That's where designer shoe warehouse comes in. Loving wide leg jeans.
- [01:21]
Courtney Harrell
Pair them with sleek low profile sneakers.
- [01:24]
Victoria Mayorga
Obsessed with the sheer trend? Try it with mesh flats. Feeling boho comfy sandals. Nail the whole free spirited thing. Find on trend shoes from the brands you love like Birkenstock, Nike, Adidas and more at DSW.
- [01:45]
Margo Gray
It'S 2021. Victoria Mayorga, a sophomore at Mills College is sitting in dorm before class.
- [01:53]
Victoria Mayorga
I remember it pretty clearly. I lived on the second floor facing the parking lot and I had this great big window. It sit in front of wooden, dark, beautifully paned six panels because the sunlight came through there and I liked people watching from the parking lot. I was doing my usual routine, checking emails before I started the day and the email popped up and honestly it kind of felt like time stood still.
- [02:26]
Margo Gray
The email arrived out of the blue from the president of Mills College. The subject line Mills Transition. It announced that the school was about to shut down.
- [02:39]
Victoria Mayorga
There were no red flags. There were no warning signs and I think most students felt blindsided. Foreign.
- [02:48]
Margo Gray
I'm Margo Gray. This week on campus the unraveling of Mills College and what it means for the future of private universities.
- [03:04]
Victoria Mayorga
My name is Victoria Ixchel Mayorga. I am 23 years old, born and raised in Yonkers, New York. So sorry. Mom. Mom I'm gonna interview thank you. Sorry.
- [03:19]
Margo Gray
When I spoke to Victoria Mayorga she was home from college after finishing her final Exams.
- [03:25]
Victoria Mayorga
Right now I'm studying history, culture, and law. I'm really passionate about cultural research and postcolonial theory.
- [03:36]
Margo Gray
Victoria has always had a passion for learning, something she largely credits to her mom.
- [03:42]
Victoria Mayorga
She immigrated here when she was like 15, and she was a young mother, teenage mother, and yet still, she got her undergrad, she got her grad, and she got her PhD. Published her first book this year. She's very accomplished, is in academia still. She's a professor at City College, and she kind of set the bar for that.
- [04:01]
Margo Gray
With her mom's legacy and three older sisters who all went to college. Pursuing higher education was always a given for Victoria.
- [04:10]
Victoria Mayorga
I think a part of immigrant culture is like your parents cross borders and work so hard to give you everything. That college also is, in a way, an obligation to the family prosperity.
- [04:21]
Margo Gray
Victoria had no clue where she wanted to go to college until she stumbled upon her dream school. By chance, her older sister was applying to several schools, one of which was Mills, a small women's college in California. The Mayorga family had never been to California before, so they all decided to tag along for the campus tour.
- [04:42]
Victoria Mayorga
Mills is located in East Oakland, the Bay area, near San Francisco. I kind of describe it as like a green oasis in the urban city.
- [04:52]
Margo Gray
The area around Mills has become highly developed and industrialized, but the college itself has remained largely unchanged since its founding in 1852.
- [05:02]
Victoria Mayorga
If you can imagine it, you're in the city right off the highway. There's like a gas station, there's a 7 11. And then you see white walls and gates and these big grand arches right off the highway. And there's one way in and there's one way out. So you go through the main entrance, and it's just trees and green fields, and the campus had eucalyptus trees, and there's a lake in the back, you know, like a sanctuary. In a way.
- [05:29]
Margo Gray
Victoria was caught off guard by the school's beauty. She hadn't expected much and certainly hadn't planned on touring it for herself. But the more she learned about Mills, the more it felt like the right place for her.
- [05:41]
Victoria Mayorga
It really appealed to me that it was a small school, very individualized education, 500 students undergrad, tiny. And I think also it being an all women's school was very appealing because it felt like a safer educational environment, if that makes sense.
- [05:56]
Margo Gray
Victoria was also drawn to the school's rich history of activism. As the first women's college west of the Rocky Mountains, Mills has long been a place that challenged the status quo. One of its most defining moments came in 1990, during the famous Mills sit in in 1990.
- [06:15]
Victoria Mayorga
The board of trustees and the president at the time wanted to go co ed, like open the doors for men to come to keep the business going and make more money. And students protested for several days and like, had marches and banners and made a big fuss, and it worked. So I think there was something in the history and the energy of Mills that kept that going.
- [06:38]
Margo Gray
When it came time for her to apply to college, Victoria eagerly threw her hat in the ring. And not only was she accepted to Mills, she was awarded the school's highest possible scholarship. In the fall of 2019, she packed her bags and headed west to begin her freshman year. From the very beginning, Mills lived up to her expectations, particularly the classes.
- [07:02]
Victoria Mayorga
We had very niche topics that were given a lot of resource and time. For example, like queer writers of color and poets, or like post colonial intensive studies, or like we had the book art printing studio, which is one of the first actually west of the Rockies. You don't just get that at every school. So it almost felt like the world was your oyster.
- [07:24]
Margo Gray
And as she had anticipated, Victoria loved being in a classroom with only women.
- [07:29]
Victoria Mayorga
Going from my high school that was co ed to one gender, there was less hesitation. I would see my peers would participate more. There was less fear as well. How that manifested in the campus was that there was a lot of camaraderie, Shared meals, shared events, you know, taking care of each other. It kind of felt like a fairy tale.
- [07:50]
Margo Gray
But Victoria's college fairytale didn't last long. First came Covid in the spring of her freshman year, disrupting everything. Then, just a year later, another blow. That's when Mills president Beth Hillman sent the email we heard about at the beginning of the episode, the one with the subject Mills transition. It announced that Mills would transition from being a degree granting institution to. To something called the Mills Institute, a nonprofit focused on women's leadership and racial and gender equity. In other words, Mills College as students knew it was coming to an end. The final degrees would likely be awarded in 2023 current students could finish their programs, but after that, it would be over.
- [08:40]
Victoria Mayorga
I was by myself in my dorm, shocked and bewildered that my school was going to shut down. And I had no idea, no warning, nothing.
- [08:50]
Margo Gray
As for why Mills was making the change, the email cited economic strain caused by the COVID pandemic, as well as the school's declining enrollment and broader shifts happening across higher education.
- [09:03]
Victoria Mayorga
So I did notice that it seemed more age and antiquated that there wasn't a lot of people on campus and that most of the dorms were not full. But I was 17, 18. I didn't know how a school budget works, how their financial situation moves, and how that affects me. In my mind, if they're actively recruiting students, if they're taking admissions, that must mean they have money to run, right? You know, that was never a fear that crossed my mind of, oh, my school could shut down.
- [09:32]
Margo Gray
Victoria wasn't the only one feeling blindsided. Professors and staff had learned about it just one day before students did.
- [09:41]
Victoria Mayorga
So not even our professors. Our staff could be there for us and, you know, have answers for us because they were just finding out in the same 24 hours that we were. What it felt like from the onset was being in the dark and having to find the way out yourself because there was very little transparency and communication from the higher ups in the school.
- [10:01]
Margo Gray
Over the next few weeks, the only information students received came through email, since pandemic restrictions were still in place. And rather than clarifying things, these emails only deepened the confusion. In one instance, an email suggested that Mills might survive through a joint program with Berkeley that would generate revenue. But that email was retracted less than a week later.
- [10:28]
Victoria Mayorga
It felt like we were playing telephone based on who knew what, who could share this, who was working in this office, who got a little more of the inside story. They didn't have everything sorted out before they started making announcements. The future of Mills and my academic experience there felt so uncertain because it kept feeling like we were yo yo'd around with, like, bad news and good news.
- [10:48]
Margo Gray
The rest of the semester offered no more clarity. Then, shortly after students had left campus for summer break, another email arrived that changed everything. With a Venmo debit card, you can Venmo more than just your friends. You can use your balance in so many ways. You can Venmo everything. Need gas? You can Venmo this. How about snacks? You can Venmo that. Your favorite band's merch? You can Venmo this. Or their next show. You can Venmo that. Visit Venmo me debit to learn more.
- [11:21]
Courtney Harrell
You can Venmo this or you can Venmo that.
- [11:24]
Victoria Mayorga
Yo.
- [11:24]
Matthew Hendricks
You can Venmo this.
- [11:25]
Courtney Harrell
So you could Venmo that.
- [11:26]
Matthew Hendricks
You could Venmo.
- [11:27]
Margo Gray
The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp bank and a pursuant to license. My MasterCard International Incorporated card may be used everywhere. MasterCard is accepted. Purchase restrictions apply.
- [11:34]
Courtney Harrell
Imagine if you could ask someone anything you wanted about their finances. How much do you make? Who paid for that fancy dinner. What did your house actually cost? On every episode of what We Spend, a different guest opens up their wallets, opens up their lives, really, and tells us all about their finances. For one week, they tell us everything they spend their money on.
- [11:57]
Matthew Hendricks
My son slammed like $6 with the blueberries and five minutes.
- [12:00]
Courtney Harrell
This is a podcast about all the ways money comes into our lives and then leaves again. Which of course we all have a lot of feelings about. I really want these things. I want to own a house, I.
- [12:11]
Margo Gray
Want to have a child.
- [12:12]
Courtney Harrell
But this morning I really wanted a coffee. Because whatever you are buying or not buying or saving or spending, at the end of the day, money is always about more than your balance. I'm Courtney Harrell and this is what We Spend, listen to and follow what We Spend, an Odysea original podcast available now. Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [12:34]
Victoria Mayorga
This episode.
- [12:35]
Margo Gray
Is brought to you by State Farm. Knowing you could be saving money for.
- [12:38]
Victoria Mayorga
The things you really want is a great feeling.
- [12:41]
Margo Gray
Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
- [12:49]
Courtney Harrell
Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer.
- [12:54]
Margo Gray
Availability, amount of discounts and savings and.
- [12:57]
Courtney Harrell
And eligibility vary by state.
- [13:04]
Margo Gray
Victoria ended her sophomore year uncertain about her future at Mills. She hadn't even told her mom yet, unsure of what the closure actually meant for her. But just as she was starting to settle into summer break, the news broke.
- [13:20]
Victoria Mayorga
Mills College in Oakland just announced that they're going to be merging with Northeastern University in Boston to keep the campus open. Mills had previously said they were going to have to close their doors by 2021 because of financial issues. When I got that email saying Northeastern would partner with us, I was like, who the hell is this? I just knew it was in the Boston consortium of, like, Boston University and Tufts and Harvard. I knew it was probably a really good school, but I truly knew nothing about its curriculum, its history, its student body.
- [13:52]
Margo Gray
A subsequent email assured students that the merger wouldn't change the school they knew and loved. It emphasized how Mills and Northeastern had a, quote, shared commitment to access, social justice and urban engagement. The email also included a quote from Northeastern's president, claiming that his school's focus on inclusion perfectly aligned with Mills values. But Mills students were skeptical.
- [14:20]
Victoria Mayorga
Immediately, my friends and other community members I talked to at the time at Mills, who were also undergrad, dove into our research and were like, who's Northeastern? What is this?
- [14:29]
Margo Gray
And the more they learned, the more it became clear that the reality would be far from the reassuring promises they were given. For one, Northeastern was co ed, meaning men would now be part of campus life at Mills. Additionally, northeastern's curriculum was heavily focused on stem, offering few of the niche courses that had initially drawn students like Victoria to Mills.
- [14:52]
Victoria Mayorga
But I think what really cemented the deal of it kind of being something that would kill mills, and what was here was seeing that Northeastern had global campuses.
- [15:03]
Margo Gray
Over the past decade, Northeastern has expanded rapidly, thanks to a dedicated mergers and acquisitions team, something more commonly associated with private equity than higher education. This team identifies struggling schools, acquires them, and rebrands them under northeastern's name, Northeastern.
- [15:24]
Victoria Mayorga
University could soon have a campus in Manhattan.
- [15:27]
Courtney Harrell
Leaders from marymount, Manhattan college, and Northeastern.
- [15:30]
Victoria Mayorga
University announced they have agreed to pursue a merger. Northeastern has a strategy where they're kind.
- [15:37]
Courtney Harrell
Of jumping on these schools that would.
- [15:39]
Victoria Mayorga
Be obsolete and taking advantage of that. Have they been successful? I just knew it would be bad because I saw the way that they rebranded and washed these campuses overs to be uniform with their Boston campus and how that impacted students there. So I immediately knew this would be a business venture, a business acquisition, and not an educational merger.
- [15:59]
Margo Gray
Victoria's fears were realized when Mills announced that several majors would be cut. Since northeastern lacks accreditation in most liberal arts fields, that meant many students no longer had a clear path to graduation.
- [16:13]
Victoria Mayorga
They sent us a document that said the majors that would continue on the campus and the majors that would be cut, and then the majors that you could continue in Boston if they had it. It was kind of like when they released the cast list for, like, a theater thing. It felt like a joke.
- [16:28]
Margo Gray
For students whose majors were affected by the merger, the options weren't great. Some had to switch majors entirely, risking delays to their graduation. Others could transfer their credits into an existing major at northeastern, but those programs were often very different. Or students could leave Mills entirely and transfer to a new university. To make matters worse, they had just one week to make the decision. Since the Mills administration had delivered the news only days before transfer deadlines were.
- [17:00]
Victoria Mayorga
Due, it felt very unserious and very unprofessional of them telling us so last minute, hey, you either need to drop out, choose a new major, or move to Boston.
- [17:11]
Margo Gray
Victoria had been majoring in politics, public policy, economics, and law, a program that no longer existed. Her credits would be reassigned to a different major in Northeastern's curriculumhistory, culture and law. Meanwhile, her minor in ethnic studies was being eliminated entirely. She seriously considered transferring, but in the end, she chose to Stay. She wanted to be part of Mills final chapter, whatever that looked like.
- [17:41]
Victoria Mayorga
All I knew is that I wanted my degree from Mills, and I loved where I was and the people I was with. And although things were shifting, I knew I wanted to stay on the ship until it sunk.
- [17:54]
Margo Gray
Once Victoria decided to stay, she made it her mission to advocate for Mills students. With a few months left before the merger terms were finalized, she saw an opening to push the administration to listen to student demands.
- [18:09]
Victoria Mayorga
And me and my roommates one night at like, one in the morning, met up in our living room on campus, and we just wrote a list of everything that was going wrong and also the things that we needed.
- [18:21]
Margo Gray
Victoria sent me a photo of the whiteboard from that night, written in blue marker at the top. Topics, issues, problems. Below, a bulleted list of ideas that would later take shape as their demands to the school.
- [18:35]
Victoria Mayorga
We wanted new advisors. We wanted our financial aid plans by the end of the month. We wanted our housing by the end of the month. We wanted our classes by the end of the month. And we were like, if Mills administration is not going to look out for us, if President Hillman's not going to look out for us, we have to look out for ourselves.
- [18:53]
Margo Gray
To advocate for those demands, Victoria helped lead a sit in at Mills hall that spring. She and her fellow students drew inspiration from the famous 1990 protest against Mills going co ed.
- [19:06]
Victoria Mayorga
We did a press release. We had alumni help us. We drafted our demands. We printed it out. We had a whole table to sign it and everything. And people came in and out and brought food and water and snacks and music. We did homework. And, yeah, after three days, I was very surprised by this. But President Beth Hillman came and sat with us and listened to us, and she signed our list of demands, which, of course, is not a binding legal contract, but it meant something.
- [19:36]
Margo Gray
Ultimately, Hellman's signature proved more symbolic than anything.
- [19:41]
Victoria Mayorga
As soon as the contract was signed and things were real and official, so many things changed. Northeastern let go of 86 staff, and they immediately insisted upon the professors at Mills teaching the exact curriculum being taught in Boston to have uniformity. Northeastern was very quick to rebrand and to remake the campus. They changed the furniture in certain outdoor spaces and indoor spaces to be uniform to the furniture they have in Boston. Signs were changed everywhere. The Google Maps name was changed to Mills College at Northeastern. It was very strange.
- [20:19]
Margo Gray
Then, at the start of the 2022 fall semester, hundreds of Northeastern freshmen arrived on the Mills campus.
- [20:27]
Victoria Mayorga
They didn't tell people about the history of it being all women's college. They didn't tell them about the history of it being very social justice oriented and very diverse. They just kind of took it as look at this new campus we have for you to go explore for a semester or for a year to be precise.
- [20:42]
Margo Gray
800 freshmen arrived at Mills, a school where the entire student body had previously just been 500. This influx of first year students also meant that the curriculum had to change.
- [20:55]
Victoria Mayorga
Because there was less demand for upperclassmen level classes. A lot of professors who had been there for 40 years were forced to teach first year seminars, were forced to teach curriculums of classes they never taught before.
- [21:07]
Margo Gray
Adding insult to injury, Victoria says Northeastern students were given preferential treatment.
- [21:13]
Victoria Mayorga
Northeastern students got their housing assignments first. They got to register for classes first. Before legacy students, they had their degree pathways. We didn't have a degree pathway. We didn't have new advisors. We weren't allowed to have Mills advisors anymore. We had to have Boston based advisors. We had to virtually meet with.
- [21:31]
Margo Gray
Victoria was eager to shed light on these issues. So when a reporter came to campus, she gave an hours long interview sharing the struggles she and her friends were facing. But when the article was ultimately published, Victoria felt and misrepresented her and her peers, portraying them as whiny. Even in the headline, students complain of culture shock as Northeastern University settles into California Outpost.
- [21:58]
Victoria Mayorga
In the comments section, which was an open forum for the public, there was over 300 comments of grown adults saying these liberal arts students should be grateful. They don't know the real world. Northeasterns save them. That's how capitalism and business goes. Good luck to these blue hair students working as baristas. Look, change is inevitable. Mills was not going to just get its debts paid off and keep running as is. I understand that, but we didn't sign up for this.
- [22:27]
Margo Gray
The thing is, not everyone believes that change was inevitable or that Mills needed to be saved in the first place.
- [22:39]
Courtney Harrell
It's summer time to enjoy long days, lazy nights and great food. Because Uber Eats has deals all summer long. So when hunger strikes, don't sweat it. Delicious deals are just a tap away on Uber Eats. Enjoy all your favorite favorite grocery items delivered straight to you. Get ice cream, soda and snacks from your favorite stores like Wegmans and cvs and make the most of every moment. Now that sounds like a good summer. Order now on Ubereats terms, apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up, we thought we'd bring our prices down so to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing.
- [23:19]
Matthew Hendricks
Mint Mobile unlimited premium wireless.
- [23:22]
Victoria Mayorga
30, 30. Get 30. Better get 20, 20, 20. Better get 20. 20.
- [23:25]
Margo Gray
Everybody get 15, 15, 15, 15. Just 15 bucks a month.
- [23:28]
Victoria Mayorga
Sold.
- [23:28]
Courtney Harrell
Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment.
- [23:32]
Victoria Mayorga
Of 45 dollars for 3 month plan equivalent to 15 dollars per month.
- [23:34]
Courtney Harrell
Required new customer offer for first 3 months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com.
- [23:43]
Margo Gray
From the beginning of the crisis at Mills, leadership insisted the school couldn't be saved on its own, that its finances were beyond repair.
- [23:52]
Victoria Mayorga
I'm Beth Hillman, the president of Mills College. It's become clear that we cannot continue to fulfill Mills mission in our current form.
- [24:01]
Margo Gray
The narrative that Mills couldn't survive has its skeptics. Among the most outspoken is Matthew Hendricks. He's the founder of Perspective Data Science, a consulting firm that analyzes the finances of colleges and universities.
- [24:16]
Matthew Hendricks
I'm a trained econometrician, so I have a lot of experience using data to analyze policy questions.
- [24:24]
Margo Gray
Matthew's interest in college finances began during his time at the University of Tulsa, where he served as chair of the economics department. The university was in the midst of a financial crisis and Matthew saw an opportunity to put his economic expertise to work. But when he began analyzing the data, he was stunned by the extent of the financial mismanagement.
- [24:47]
Matthew Hendricks
I mean, really, spending distributions that I was not at all prepared to see, in fact would probably be illegal in most K12 systems.
- [24:58]
Margo Gray
Analyzing the University of Tulsa's finances made Matthew realize that this kind of mismanagement was probably happening at other colleges too.
- [25:08]
Matthew Hendricks
And so once things kind of got straightened out at the University of Tulsa, I started looking around and at other schools that had similar characteristics to what.
- [25:15]
Margo Gray
I just dealt with, one school immediately stood out to him. Mills. The college had just announced a merger with Northeastern to avoid closure. When Matthew delved into the numbers, he traced the financial Troubles back to 2015. He began digging into what had gone wrong that year.
- [25:35]
Matthew Hendricks
Of course, all of the staff and everybody was tight lipped. So I started asking questions and nobody had any answers for me.
- [25:42]
Margo Gray
To be honest, Matthew realized that if he was going to find answers, they'd have to come from the data. And what he found was striking. That year, Mills had received half the number of applicants compared to previous years.
- [25:58]
Matthew Hendricks
So how did they lose half of their applications? The short answer is I don't know for sure. But my best guess is that they added some essays to their Common app requirement. Big mistake. You can crater your applications by just making small changes to your application or your application fees. I think the average person would be pretty shocked at just like a $10 change in application fee can have a really big impact on the number of apps you get.
- [26:25]
Margo Gray
Whatever the cause, fewer applicants resulted in lower enrollment and declining revenue. And Matthew says Mills only made the crisis worse. He discovered that the school was overspending dramatically on staffing, particularly in non instructional areas like administration, security and student services.
- [26:45]
Matthew Hendricks
I was blown away. It's not even like subtle overstaffing. We're talking like double the number of staff that they should have had for their revenue and size. And then they also had double the number of part time staff that what you would see at a typical school of their size. The salaries are also higher, right? They're in the Bay Area. So it's even more important to have the number right.
- [27:08]
Margo Gray
Out of the hundreds of schools he's analyzed, none have been as wildly overstaffed as Mills.
- [27:14]
Matthew Hendricks
Then on top of that, they also had a ton of contracts about again, double what was normal. And one of the bigger ones was their food service contract. While they're losing students, somehow their food service contract went up.
- [27:27]
Margo Gray
Mills had a significant spending problem. Even in its final three years, while claiming financial distress, the school increased spending by $2 million. The thing is, spending is a fixable issue. Matthew says. All it would have taken was strategic cost cutting. But the people in charge didn't seem to grasp that. In fact, they didn't seem to understand their finances at all. Nothing illustrates this more clearly than the board's own testimony.
- [27:57]
Matthew Hendricks
The board chair testified that they had negative cash flow from operations for a long time, which is technically true if you look at their audit. But Mills is one of those schools, like Harvard, like MIT and many others that don't include their endowment draw as part of operating income in the cash flow statement.
- [28:20]
Margo Gray
Put simply, colleges often do their accounting differently. Some schools like Mills, Harvard and MIT don't include their endowment as part of their operating income.
- [28:31]
Matthew Hendricks
If you include that back in, if Harvard includes it back in, if MIT includes it back in, they all have positive cash flow from operating activities. And it was the same case for Mills.
- [28:42]
Margo Gray
Mills actually has a sizable endowment, which makes this misunderstanding all the more significant.
- [28:49]
Matthew Hendricks
Their endowment was 224 million, which is huge for a small school like that. That is $263,000 per student. The median school is $32,000 per student.
- [29:05]
Margo Gray
With an endowment that large, the size of Mill's debt, 31 million starts to look pretty modest. And that, Matthew says, is exactly what made Mills so attractive to Northeastern. A large endowment, valuable real estate, and manageable debt. But Mills leadership didn't seem to grasp that.
- [29:26]
Matthew Hendricks
They had, again, a picture that was much more bleak than it was in reality. I think just because of this misunderstanding of the accounting.
- [29:36]
Margo Gray
This kind of misunderstanding, Matthew says, happens more often than you'd expect. In fact, he sees it regularly in the universities he works with.
- [29:46]
Matthew Hendricks
Sadly, it seems like there's a lot of guessing going on in higher ed and sometimes guessing wrong, which can be catastrophic.
- [29:54]
Margo Gray
Matthew worked closely with alumni from a group called the Save Mills Coalition, providing data to support their fight to keep the school alive. He hoped to show the college's leadership that there was still a path forward, that the ship could be righted. But by then, it was already too late.
- [30:13]
Matthew Hendricks
Problem was, they had already made the decision, and there were a lot of egos on the line, and it was just too much momentum was built to do the merger. And plus, at the end of the day, they're merging with Northeastern, which had a great reputation and so on. But it was still sad because it was clear that their mission was not going to survive.
- [30:32]
Margo Gray
That's exactly what Victoria was experiencing on the Mills campus. Her school was becoming increasingly unrecognizable.
- [30:41]
Victoria Mayorga
Every day, I was seeing more and more of it disappear and the history go. And still to this day, they don't offer a history course about Mills, and they don't talk about Mills.
- [30:51]
Margo Gray
Even the historic graduation ceremony was changed.
- [30:55]
Victoria Mayorga
Mills, being a women's college, used to have a very special uniform with, like, a hat that's, like, kind of curved and folded. And they changed that to the typical black polyester one that every college has. And they even changed the location of the graduation that had been in the same place for 400 years. It was crazy.
- [31:13]
Margo Gray
By the end of her junior year, Victoria found herself with few friends left on campus. Ultimately, she made the tough decision to transfer to Northeastern's Boston campus for her final year.
- [31:26]
Victoria Mayorga
It got to a point where I wanted to leave Mills while I still remembered it, how I liked it, while it was still sweet and not bitter. And I thought I would stay on the ship till it sank. But I actually realized that I didn't want to remember it that way. I wanted to remember when it was afloat.
- [31:47]
Margo Gray
At Mills, Victoria had been part of a small community of just 500 students. When she started at Northeastern, she was suddenly one of 30,000. Victoria struggled and eventually took some time off, but she's now back on the Boston campus, set to graduate in the spring of 2025, she's currently fighting to have her diploma read Mills at Northeastern instead of just Northeastern. If she fails, she'll find herself in the highly unusual position of graduating from a college she did not choose to attend.
- [32:26]
Victoria Mayorga
I'm looking forward to walking here in Boston because at the very least I am owed this damn degree at this point from this school, and I owe it to myself after going through so much. Even though Northeastern killed Mills, they couldn't kill me.
- [32:52]
Margo Gray
Campus Files is an Odyssey Original Podcast. This episode was written and reported by Margo Gray. Campus Files is produced by Ian Mont Eliot Adler and me, Margo Gray. Our executive producers and story editors are Maddie Sprunkiser and Lloyd Lockridge. Campus Files is edited, mixed and mastered by Chris Basel and Andy Jaskowicz. Special thanks to Jenna Weiss Berman, J.D. crowley, Leah Reese, Dennis, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, Hilary Shelley, Sean Cherry, Laura Berman and Hilary Van Ornam. Original theme music by James Waterman and Davy Sumner. If you have tips or story ideas, write to us@campusfilespodmail.com.
- [33:49]
Courtney Harrell
Let'S be honest. You've been portrayed as a monster. Yes. Evil. Maniacal.
- [33:56]
Margo Gray
What's it like to interview a killer? 48 Hours is taking you inside what we've learned about the criminal mind. This is Killer Conversation. You can follow and listen to Killer Conversation on Tuesdays in the 48 Hours podcast feed on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.