Hillsdale’s Comeback : After a scandal, the conservative college is stronger than ever.

National Review ^ | 09/10/2007 | John J. Miller

[SirLinksalot]

September 10, 2007, 5:00 a.m.

Hillsdale’s Comeback
The college is stronger than ever.

By John J. Miller

When Larry Arnn arrived on the campus of Hillsdale College seven years ago as its new president, the school was reeling from scandal and its future was uncertain. Today, however, the college has bounced back. “We’re much stronger,” says Arnn.

This year’s incoming freshman class, in fact, is Hillsdale’s best ever.

The numbers tell the story. The freshman who arrived on campus last month had an average SAT score of 1940 and an average ACT score of 28. The year before Arnn took over, these figures were 1820 and 26. (I’ve converted the older SAT scores using this table.)

The 2007 freshmen also had better high-school grade-point averages and were more likely to have graduated in the top ten percent of their classes.

This success story was by no means inevitable.

In 1999, Hillsdale was a proud bastion of conservatism. Under the leadership of the late George Roche, its president for nearly three decades, Hillsdale had transformed itself from an ordinary liberal-arts college in rural Michigan into a nationally celebrated institution that was best known for refusing to accept a penny of financial aid from the federal government. At a time when Washington was making massive encroachments on the independence of colleges and universities, Hillsdale showed that it was possible to put up a fight and still flourish.

Then came a controversy that was often described as tragic but which in fact was Gothic: the suicide of Lissa Roche, an employee of the college; accusations of a long-term affair with her father-in-law, the college president; and George Roche’s hasty disappearance from anything resembling public life. (At the time, I covered the story for National Review.)

Liberals reveled in the news, not merely because it was salacious but also because it was an embarrassment to conservatives. Wasn’t Hillsdale supposed to be a fortress of traditional values?

Yes, it was—and that’s why it survived its awful crisis.

“The college hit a bump in the road,” says Arnn. “I came here because I believe in what the college stands for, from its very first day in 1844.”

Arnn previously had headed the Claremont Institute, a California think tank that holds the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in reverence. So it made sense for him to find inspiration in Hillsdale’s own founding documents. “I decided that everybody at the college would study them, and that they would inform everything we do,” says Arnn.

Hillsdale’s articles of association say the college is “grateful to God for the inestimable blessings resulting from the prevalence of civil and religious liberty and intelligent piety in the land, and believing that the diffusion of sound learning is essential to the perpetuity of these blessings.” Hillsdale also was the first American college to forbid discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or sex in its charter.

In one of this first moves, Arnn implemented an honor code. “It’s not just about lying and cheating and stealing—it’s about cultivating moral and intellectual virtues and accepting the mission of the college.”

The approach appears to have worked, according to figures provided by the college administration. The number of student applications soared from a recent low of 861 in 2000, when the school’s scandal was still fresh in many minds, to 1401 this year—an increase of 63 percent. During the same period, the rate of acceptance has dropped from 86 percent to 64 percent and the likelihood that an incoming freshman is from Michigan has fallen from 48 percent to 34 percent.

The school also has more professors today, and they’re probably happier: A requirement that they teach four courses per semester has been reduced to three. “This load is more in keeping with what’s expected on other campuses,” says Arnn. “Any college is a messy place with lots of opinions, but I don’t fight with the faculty very much.” In recent years, Arnn has convinced several prominent scholars to move to Hillsdale, including the political scientist Thomas Krannawitter, the historian Paul Rahe, and English professor Stephen W. Smith. National Review Online columnist Victor Davis Hanson is a part-time professor.

Fundraising is going very well, too: In its last fiscal year, Hillsdale raised nearly $66 million—roughly twice what it was bringing in a decade ago. The college is currently in the midst of a five-year capital campaign, with the goal of raising $400 million by the end of 2008. So far, it has brought in $380 million. “We might have the rest by Christmas,” says Arnn.

Does that mean he’ll end the campaign early? “Actually, we may extend it,” says Arnn. An ambitious plan to revamp and expand the campus keeps growing more elaborate, with the addition of a new science building and other improvements. Worried about meddlesome bureaucrats from Lansing, Hillsdale also recently quit accepting state aid. As a separate initiative, the college is starting to build a retirement community for people who want to spend their golden years living in the kind of intellectual environment that only Hillsdale can provide.

Hillsdale College always has been different. The 2008-09 edition of Choosing the Right College notes that “the largest group on campus is the College Republicans.” That might appall the left-wing relativists who dominate other schools.

So would the judgment that the Hillsdale experience may induce: Sometimes different really is better.

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[Excellence]

They also have their own K-12. The Hillsdale K-12 curriculum (sequence) is available free from their website. Many of their graduates go on to Hillsdale College. Arnn’s daughter graduated this year.

[skinkinthegrass]

KEWL!...they produce:

www.hillsdale.edu/imprimis/ - 50k - Cached - Similar pages

[Jagman]

My daughter currently attends Hillsdale and loves it.

[milwguy]

My son is considering hillsdale for next year. With a 29 on his ACT he will only be slightly above the average for the school’s incoming freshman class. We visited this spring and were very impressed with the people and the campus.

[Excellence]

You would be amazed at how many in the top eschelons of government graduated from Hillsdale. It's almost like a feeder school.

[SirLinksalot]

I hasten to add that Hillsdale, together with another excellent college -— GROVE CITY COLLEGE are the only two conservative colleges that I know of that REFUSES to accept Federal funds. They do not want the Feds intruding on how they accept applicants or be crippled by Fed regulations on education.

Inspite of this, these two colleges are THRIVING with enrolees exceeding the number they can accept.

[petitfour]

Is that a good thing?

[SirLinksalot]

You would be amazed at how many in the top eschelons of government graduated from Hillsdale. It's almost like a feeder school.

From the same National Review article:

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Returning to the Returning to the ISI Civic Literacy Survey, consider:

The highest Freshman scores were secured at:

Georgetown

Princeton

Harvard

Dartmouth

Yale

Williams

This isn’t so surprising, as these schools attract bright students. What of the highest Senior scores? Most of the usual suspects again appear:

Princeton

Harvard

Dartmouth

Yale

Williams

But also:

Grove City

Ah, so civic literacy improved at a few of America’s finest universities? Hardly. Princeton, Harvard, and Dartmouth made marginal increases between their Freshman and Senior scores, while scores at Yale and Williams actually fell from Freshmen to Seniors. (Georgetown fell off of the list). They were still better, comparatively, than other scores, but this offers little cause for congratulation. Good news! Four years at Dartmouth may leave the average undergraduate’s high school civics education intact! If colleges are dedicated to simply preserving high school knowledge then we can consider these schools real exemplars. Theirs is at least a better performance than a number of their elite peers; the greatest decline in scores came at:

Duke

Brown

Cornell

UC Berkeley

Johns Hopkins

No comment. Moving on, there are institutions at which students learned something (yes, it sounds suspicious to me also). Consider those most improved:

Rhodes College

Colorado State

Calvin

Grove City

University of Colorado, Boulder

One of them, Grove City, increased its scores so greatly as to rise from the mid-range to the top of the performance list. The others all yielded respectable increases. How so? I’m not sure.

One item of note is that Rhodes, Calvin, and Grove City all boast substantial core curricula. Those three are also Christian colleges—and I had always suspected that civic literacy smacked of theocracy.

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[SirLinksalot]

Here's more news about Hillsdale :
----------------------------------------------

Standing Strong [Michael O'Brien]

The Chronicle's new issue (subscription req'd) highlights a new decision by Hillsdale College to not only continue to reject federal funding, but to now reject state funding as well. No doubt U-M, MSU, Wayne State and so on will all be lobbying for the $670,000 Hillsdale is forgoing.

[SirLinksalot]

More from National Review :

Can A College Survive without Government Funding? [George Leef]

Education is sometimes said to be a "public good" that can't be provided without government financial assistance.

Not so, says Hillsdale College, and proves the point. Since the 1980s, Hillsdale has provided its students with all the money that federal student aid programs would have given them, in order to maintain its independence from the bureaucrats in Washington. Now, the school has also decided to cut all financial ties to the state government in Michigan. This Detroit News editorial covers the story. The school will replace $670,000 worth of state aid with money raised privately.

When Hillsdale opened back in 1844, it was one of the few colleges that refused to discriminate against any applicant. It set a good example then, and does so now with its policy of running without any dependence on money taken from taxpayers.

[Yo-Yo]

(I’ve converted the older SAT scores using this table.)

Thank goodness! I saw the average score of 1820 and thought to myself "I'm no genius, but I thought my SAT of 1210 was a decent score."

Using the table, that would translate to an 1820.

[Greg F]

People that attended Universities that are “left-wing” — like Princeton, Harvard, U Penn, Cornell, Duke, Tufts (and every other school in the country) should consider giving to the conservative colleges instead. And for sure, employers should recruit at the conservative schools.

[VOA]

“Hillsdale’s Comeback : After a scandal, the conservative college
is stronger than ever.”

Great News!
And Larry Arnn is a good guy (even if a bit too low-key for my tastes
during his appearances on The Hugh Hewitt Show)

And for the folks in the forum that haven’t heard of it...
The publication “Imprimis”, a condensate of lectures given at Hillsdale
is a MUST READ!
(old issues can be found in the online archive)

http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis.asp

[VOA]

In one of this first moves, Arnn implemented an honor code.
“It’s not just about lying and cheating and stealing—it’s about
cultivating moral and intellectual virtues and accepting the
mission of the college.”

What a bunch of fuddie-duddies!!! (/SARC)

When my young niece is a high-school junior...I'll be pushing
Hillsdale to my brother and sister-in-law.
(Provided Hillsdale stay the same old fuddie-duddie place!)

[Dr. Sivana]

I hasten to add that Hillsdale, together with another excellent college -— GROVE CITY COLLEGE are the only two conservative colleges that I know of that REFUSES to accept Federal funds

A number of conservative Catholic colleges do not play the game either. Christendom College and Thomas Aquinas College come to mind, and there are others.

[SirLinksalot]

A number of conservative Catholic colleges do not play the game either. Christendom College and Thomas Aquinas College come to mind, and there are others.

This is very interesting. I thought that there were only 2 ( Hillsdale and Grove ). Could you give me a link that says that Christendom College and Thomas Aquinas College do not accept federal money ?

[Excellence]

Yes, actually. You could get a subscription to Imprimus free, or read it over the internet. It’s all good stuff.

[petitfour]

I was questioning whether or not it is a good thing for Hillsdale grads to gravitate to government jobs.

[Dr. Sivana]

Since the College's founding, the Financial Aid Program has been funded through the consistent generosity of the College’s donors. Christendom accepts no direct federal aid, nor does it participate in indirect programs of federal aid such as the Guaranteed Student Loan program. All financial aid applicants are ineligible for any form of federal assistance, either direct or indirect, except for Social Security benefits and Veterans Administration benefits which are paid directly to the student. [emphasis in original]

http://www.christendom.edu/admissions/feesfaid.shtml