The Housing Market and Recruiting

Falling home prices have both helped and hurt colleges and universities in their recruiting, according to a report in The Chronicle.

“For some institutions, the collapsing real-estate market would be a great recruitment tool—if their state economies weren’t also ailing.

‘For the openings that we’ve had, there are more attractive prices than they’ve seen in the last couple years,’ said David B. Ashley, president of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.”

Job candidates who already own homes have found it challenging to sell them and make a career move to a new institution. However, junior faculty hires are often first-time buyers, and the struggling real-estate market has made it possible for them to purchase homes, especially in cities where the housing stock has been out of reach.

“A few weeks after Robert J. Alexander arrived in Northern California last month, he picked up keys to his first home—a 1928 bungalow, recently renovated, in a desirable neighborhood just south of the campus of the University of the Pacific, in Stockton, where he is the new associate provost for enrollment. Mr. Alexander had been renting in New Orleans, where he was an assistant vice president for enrollment management at Tulane University, so he didn’t have to worry about selling property there.”

Read more here.