A college with a $94 Mil endowment is shutting its doors, and people in higher ed should be scared

Business Insider ^ | 03/04/2015 | Peter Jacobs

[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.

[FreedomPoster]

Liberals are notoriously allergic to facts and reality, as shown here.

[EDINVA]

Sweet Briar is only an hour from Lexington, VA (VMI) and/or Charlottesville, VA (UVA). Until the early 70s, UVA was all-male, and until the mid- to late- 80s, so was VMI. Perfect for the young ladies whose parents sent them to Sweet Briar in search of that Mrs. Alas, that demographic and ambition has all but totally disappeared.

There are still several women’s colleges in that general area, i.e., Randolph-Macon and Mary Baldwin, nice small, liberal arts colleges for women. Sweet Briar has worked arrangements with those colleges (and 2 others) for expedited transfer of its students.

[Cowboy Bob]

Yes. An Mrs. degree. There is nothing wrong with that. Sweet Briar was a finishing school for the daughters of wealthy families. Many brought their horses with them.

I went to VMI during the 70s. It was a wonderful time back then. It's a shame that it is all disappearing.

[ConservativeMind]

I agree with both of you.

At this juncture, the school appears to be unwinding itself in a properly controlled fashion.