Posted on 03/04/2015 7:22:32 AM PST by SeekAndFind
A women's liberal arts college in Virginia announced Tuesday that the spring 2015 semester would be its last — even though the school still has a $94 million endowment.
Sweet Briar College — located near Lynchburg, Virginia — will close "as a result of insurmountable financial challenges," the school said in a statement.
Sweet Briar administrators cited several trends that informed the decision to close, including the declining number of female students interested in all-women colleges and the dwindling number of students overall interested in small, rural liberal arts colleges.
Last year, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that small, private US colleges were in a "death spiral" in light of dropping enrollment rates. This decline comes amid competition from cheaper online colleges and community colleges, which are enticing to students in a job market that's weaker than it once was.
Several colleges similar to Sweet Briar have recently made changes to survive financially, according to Scott Jaschik at Inside Higher Ed. But each choice has come with its own trade-offs.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Honestly ? The Alumni would not approve. Not THEIR sort of women. . .
Sweet Briar has mostly been known for MRS degrees. . .
Essentially what this means is that they were running a deficit and couldn’t come up with a business model (If I can use that phrase for a non-profit) that would turn the deficit around... so they decided to do right by their stakeholders (employees, current students, creditors) while they still had the funds to do so. The tough part is that much of that endowment is earmarked, so they also need to hire lawyers to figure what to do with without misappropriation; I imagine much will have to be returned.
Sadly, there is a misuse of “liberal education.” Women’s Studies, social sciences, etc., is liberal, but it’s a crappy liberal education.
A real liberal education should be applicable to most professional endeavors: logic and epistemology, math, natural science, language, rhetoric, foundations of civilization, etc. You don’t learn any of that as a Women’s studies major. The only relation to “liberal education” is that it’s an offshoot of “humanities.”
A technical college in the middle of nowhere? Why?
Not sure how any college can offer a business class with a straight face. They charge each student 20k-40k per year and can’t stay in business.
wgu.edu tuition is under $3000/six month term for all the classes you can complete in most majors. No reason a person can’t graduate in two years if they work at it full time; three years if they work part-time.
I once knew someone who got a job in the History Department there but I think he has retired.
I once knew someone who got a job in the History Department there but I think he has retired.
I could see that!!
Liberals are stupid.
LOL!!
A well-endowed womens’ college? Interesting...
It’s the middle of nowhere? I didn’t know that. Makes sense though, I don’t think I ever heard of it!!
LOL! That had me laughing big-time.
Like a RUSS Myer film!
I heard it’s going bust.
It’s a half-hour outside Lynchburg and about three hours from any major city (Washington or Richmond).
It is just the beginning and Mark Cuban has said this College Funding Fiasco is the next 08' Mortgage Mess we will face. I think it is the Conservative Mackinaw Center here in MI has said something like 2 or 3 of the 5 top State Colleges should close because demographically the State can swing it. That went over like a loud phart in church....
I'm going to assume you are not referring to the old-time traditional Mrs. degree that lured women to college lo those many years ago...
Because how can a women only school provide that Mrs. opportunity?
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