March 5, 2023

Another private college is biting the dust.  Michigan's Finlandia, a Lutheran-based school, announced this week that it will no longer be accepting new students for the 2023-2024 academic year. Over 125 years of Finlandia legacy will abruptly end whenever it teaches out the somewhere-south-of-425 students it likely has at the moment. 170 faculty and staff will be seeking new positions or early retirement. (BTW, I hope that employee number includes part-time, as otherwise that it is an unhealthy student-to-staff ratio.)

As a small religious-based private college in the Upper Peninsula, maybe the real story is that it survived as long as it did. The "crisis," as it is frequently called, of declining high school graduates, takes the primary blame, but if you were rarely exceeding 500 students in any given year, the sustainability of your model might have been questioned well before this recent "crisis."

Its recent history probably sounds familiar to a lot of folks from other private institutions. Only 25 years ago, the school established 4-year degree options versus solely 2-year options, almost certainly to get more enrollment, both initial and long-term. Just three years ago, dealing with the pandemic as most of us have, they abandoned the requirement of SAT or ACT scores to be admitted. With those decisions, they had basically entered the open admissions world of higher education. The problem had to be, what enticements can you make to get a high school graduate want to go to Hancock, Michigan, about as "upper" Upper Peninsula as you can get in Michigan?

One thinks about all of the factors that go into a university's website, and then one clicks on Finlandia's right now to get this bleak home page:

 It makes you wonder how the historians will capture Finlandia's story. After the Overture,

Historian: Keweenaw Peninsula, 1896 AD. A kingdom divided to the North by the Canadian-Americans, to the South by Michigander-Americans. To the West, cheeseheads and vikings. Lutherans in Hancock, in Houghton, in Chassel, in Freda. Everywhere else, Episcopalians, Catholics, Methodists. With a 50% chance of Jehovah Witnesses coming out of the Southeast at 9 miles per hour.  Legend tells of us an extraordinary leader, who rose from the chaos, to train troubled immigrants. A man with a vision who gathered faculty together in a Holy Quest. This man was Nikander, Savior of the UP Fins. For this was Finlandia.

Ensemble: Finlandia, Finlandia, Finlandia, that's the college for me!

Various lion noises.

President: Finlandia is the college where we nurse. Finlandia is the college where we police. Here at Finlandia, boy and girl can find a true vocation in traditional Scandanavian way.

All: Schlio-schlap.

President: Schlip and schlap away.

All: Schlip-schlap.

President: Schlap away all day.

All: Schlip-schlap.

President: You simply can't go wrong in traditional fish-schlapping fight song.

All: Finlandia, Finlandia, Finlandia. The college where I want to be.

Finlander 1: Puck shooting.

Finlander 2: Or ice-fishing.

All: Or just watching you ski! Finlandia, Finlandia, Finlandia, that's the college for me.

Historian: Actually, you were originally called Suomi College. You didn't become Finlandia until 2000.

All: Oh, sorry.

Finlandia Alum: We're not dead yet.

Dave: Yeah, you are. Sorry.  And there will be more to come.

*With many apologies to Eric Idle and Spamalot. Please don't sue. See citation below you greedy bastard.

[book & lyrics by Eric Idle ; music by John Du Prez & Eric Idle]. Monty Python's Spamalot : Original Broadway Cast Recording. New York, NY :Decca Broadway : Distributed by Universal Music & Video Distribution, 2005.