Brandeis president announces retirement after faculty says it has no confidence in him

Stuff like that gets massively overblown in the media imo. For one, enrollment has never been a problem at Brandeis. If anything, enrollment is too high - housing on campus is in extremely short supply, for example. Besides, the number of students leaving Ivies for Brandeis is probably minuscule, especially given Brandeis' plummeting ranking. When I was there just ten-ish years ago, the ranking among national universities was consistently in the 30s, on par with schools like BC and Tufts. Now, Brandeis is ranked in the 60s, on par with UMass (a school I love, for the record). That's another justification for Ron's ouster, too.

At the end of the day, Brandeis has always struggled financially, and fundraising is the reason. It's a school that wants to be on par with the top schools, but has only existed for 75 years and can never catch up to the endowments of schools that have existed for twice as long or longer. The social justice with Jewish roots mission of the university is great, but doesn't lend itself to producing the wealthiest graduates (and eventually, donors). It can also lead to tension when Israel is in the news, which also affects fundraising.