Former University of Missouri professor Melissa Click has certainly had an impact on both her school and society. The woman now best known for calling in some “muscle” to keep reporters away from so called “safe spaces” has spurred an ongoing discussion across the country. Much of it – at least in the circles where I travel – has focused on the suppression of free speech and a general mockery of political correctness gone awry, making laughing stocks of some of the nation’s oldest educational institutions. But how have these changes been sitting with the students themselves, many of whom spend large amounts of money to obtain an education and a degree? At least at Mizzou, it couldn’t have been terribly popular since enrollment has plunged. (Investors Business Daily)

The University of Missouri reported a near-25% drop in student enrollment following its unrest. This is the result of political correctness run amok, weak university leadership and inflated college costs.

“I am writing to you today to confirm that we project a very significant budget shortfall due to an unexpected sharp decline in first-year enrollments and student retention this coming fall,” wrote Interim Chancellor Hank Foley in a university memo Wednesday. Instead of a 900-student drop, as Mizzou expected, the university was looking at a 1,500 student drop, and that meant a continuing revenue shortfall as a smaller freshman class moves toward graduation, he explained. With U.S. News and World Report reporting a 46% four-year graduation rate for the school, it’s a steep loss indeed.

As a result, Mizzou has been hit with a $32 million revenue shortfall, and will have to cut expenses 5% and impose a hiring freeze.

Both “student retention” (read: students quitting or transferring to other schools) and new enrollments are down far beyond normal year to year variations. That means less money coming in, so there are less resources to accomplish what was ostensibly the school’s core mission. By dealing with the protesters in a conciliatory fashion and bowing to demands, most schools experiencing this phenomenon will find themselves in a vicious circle. Take a look at the list of demands which students at Yale handed to the administration recently. They are intended to promote a social justice agenda and it will come as no surprise that most of them involve the college spending ever increasing amounts of money toward that goal.

They want some teachers who are insufficiently empathetic toward the SJW movement removed, new faculty meeting demographic pigeonhole requirements hired, new training programs for SJW awareness, campus centers and safe spaces for sub-groups… the list goes on. All of it costs money, but their antics are driving away the paying customers which keep the schools in business. The students at Oberlin had a similar, gargantuan list of demands and it’s pushing them in the same direction. (The Daily Caller)

The list, which bubbled up online over the past three days, is no less than 14 pages in length, and includes a staggering 50 demands, many of which divide into several sub-demands. Not only are the demands numerous, but they are quite severe and are paired with stern rhetoric…

After continuing in this manner for a while and outlining some broad goals (such as “the eradication hegemony in the curriculum”), the document begins to reel off demands, warning that they are “not polite requests, but concrete and unmalleable demands.” If Oberlin doesn’t capitulate, the document warns of a “full and forceful response,” though, despite the detailed demands, what the “response” would be remains entirely undefined.

Once the schools began caving in to blackmail tactics like this, the dominoes were falling across the nation. Schools operate as a business, even though most are at least partially subsidized by your tax dollars. When that business can no longer profitably operate, it closes its doors. Perhaps that’s the first hard lesson some of these kids need to learn and managing to shut down the school they wanted to attend could be a good start. In the real world you don’t get to demand that your boss implement a training program for who gets to use the paper cup dispenser at the water fountain first every morning. You’re expected to act like an adult and work out normal, interpersonal relationships on your own time. A failure to do that leads to unemployment, not a student strike in the quad.

Best of luck to Mizzou. You brought this on yourselves by kowtowing to all this nonsense to begin with.