All female LAC faces tough times

Parents Forum
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<p>I think you have to look at broad variables. The quality of faculty, how much dependence on part-timers, what are the programs, which are highly reputed vs expendable, what are needs for plant upgrades (dorms, dining halls, etc?) What’s the real job placement rate- and in what? How can alums and foundations be tapped for donations? And more. The small schools with low retention or high transfer rates, middling programs and crappy follow-through aren’t going to get alum or foundation support. </p>

<p>Same way many people look at the surface when evaluating a college to apply to, I think they also like to generalize about the small college or women’s college issues.</p>

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<p>No evidence … I thought not.</p>

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<p>I can give evidence that 1/3 of s/s male colleges are thriving :)</p>

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<p>Sue, I’ve seen the article and it’s nothing more than an unscientific poll. Only about 1/3 of the undergrad students responded. If you read the survey, it states:

Mini claimed that 33 percent of Yale men are gay…17.7 percent isn’t close and that figure most likely is inflated. Kiki Fehling pretty much summed up the veracity of the poll.</p>

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<p>There have always been lots of gay people at Yale. The difference is that nowadays you find out that they’re gay while they’re still in college. I think the 17.7 percent number is probably high, but not tremendously high.</p>

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<p>The 17.7% for New Haven was (as I remember) for both genders. It was almost double that for XYs.</p>

<p>At Northampton, they are filling the college with lesbian Middle Easterners from conservative countries.</p>

<p>When I was at #1 LAC, we used to have a suicide or two among gay folks. At least there, those days seem to be over, and thank heavens!</p>

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<p>I would just like to know what the percentage of gay men at Yale has to do with Women’s Colleges…at all…even tangentially.</p>

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<p>You remembered wrong. Mini, you’d save everyone a great deal of time if you researched your facts before posting. ;)</p>

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<p>Why are you so adverse to simply saying Williams? You don’t say your daughter attended the #19 LAC.</p>

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<p>Guess Mini forgot writing this post:
"“Thank mini, he originally posted the stat….I made a poster alluding to the Yale stat and put it up in our college/career guidance room. When the Yale admission rep visited he didn’t find it amusing, but it was fun while it lasted.”</p>

<p>Well, it’s true. And the reason for it is obvious - in the general population, there are approximately five times as many gay men as lesbians in the population. Add to that the most famous, and best funded Gay Studies program in the country, with a history of the most famous gay professors (starting with the historian John Boswell whose work is amazing), and it’s not surprising that Yale would be so attractive to gay male students. And, unlike Smith, Yale has scholarships specifically earmarked for lesbian/gay students (see the link posted above.)</p>

<p>The reason it gets notice at women’s colleges is because they are WOMEN’S colleges. Yes, women’s colleges will attract more lesbian students. Smith and Wellesley and (especially) Mount Holyoke have histories of lesbian students and profs (including a former President of Mt. Holyoke) going back to 1910. Society as a whole is still slow to accept the idea of all those resources being devoted ONLY to women, with women in all the leadership positions, women strategizing about what the education of women AS WOMEN should look like, women mentors, women scientists, future women senators, congresspeople, television producers, Fortune 500 executives being produced at a rate far, far higher than 1-2% of female students who attend single gender schools. It is unnerving to a lot of people - but it isn’t because of the lesbians (the current Pres. of Smith says publicly, as every Pres. going back to Jill Ker Conway has said, it is a virtual non-issue on campus, even if of occasional concern to older alums.</p>

<p>But you always have choices: a school where 20-30% of the students are lesbians (or at least while in college - while there is no alumnae tracking, alumnae seem to indicate the percentage of alums so identifying is substantially lower), or schools with somewhat similar academics with binge drinking rates in the last two weeks of 45-50%. "</p>

<p>It’s no big deal to me if Smith attracts lesbians or not. It’s just a niche market for them which is what I said. And of course I never tied Smith to recruiting children from foreign conservative countries. That was just Mini doing his thing misrepresenting other people’s words for his own amusement.</p>

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<p>I don’t quite get what axe barrons has to grind against women’s colleges. The larger trend is clear: except for the best-endowed among them, small LACs are on extremely shaky financial ground, and that’s true whether they’re coed or single-sex. When Antioch went under a few years ago, we didn’t see headlines shouting “Coed LACs in Decline.” </p>

<p>Here’s the difference between Sweet Briar and what remains of the traditional Seven Sisters–apart from the fact that the latter have always had, and still have, a great deal more academic prestige and intellectual capital.</p>

<p>2011 Endownment (per NACUBO):</p>

<p>Sweet Briar $93.8 million</p>

<p>Mount Holyoke $603 million
Bryn Mawr $679 million
Smith $1.429 billion
Wellesley $1.5 billion</p>

<p>At a standard 5% payout, Wellesley’s endowment (or Smith’s) would generate nearly as much revenue each year as the total amount Sweet Briar has in its endowment. Granted, at 760 students Sweet Briar is tiny; on a per capita basis the endowments would be a bit closer, but the Seven Sisters still have an enormous financial edge which allows them, inter alia, to meet full need for 100% of their students. Sweet Briar, in contrast, meets full need for only 60% of its students, and on average meets only 24% of need. Which means more of its students face serious financial challenges, leading to higher quit rates and lower graduation rates.</p>

<p>The tuition spiral is a death spiral for LACs in this part of the market. Without major endowments, they’re nearly 100% dependent on tuition revenue, and they can’t afford to match their better-endowed peers in tuition discounting (i.e., need-based or merit-based financial aid). As tuition creeps higher, more of their students have financial need, and the average amount of financial need increases, but the college’s FA budget can’t keep up. So the college becomes less affordable and less attractive Faced with this dilemma, coupled with a weakening demand for a liberal arts education, many small LACs are reinventing themselves by adding vocational programs, aiming for a different segment of the market—and effectively ceasing to be LACs at all. The best-endowed LACs are still largely insulated from these market pressures; they can afford to lavish out generous FA, which helps them to attract and retain top students. And that’s true for well-endowed single-sex institutions as well as coed schools. </p>

<p>What’s happening to Sweet Briar reflects, in my opinion, not what’s happening in single-sex education per se, but rather broader trends that are forcing a shake-out among financially weaker LACs, which are increasingly unable to compete in today’s higher education marketplace.</p>

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<p>None at all. Just another sub-issue of higher ed and I said why I was on it above. Economic self-interest. My house is a mile or so from the former RMWC and in the same metro area as SBC. </p>

<p>Here is some interesting inside history of what RMWC went through in becoming RC and why. They had a near death experience falling to just over 500 students. Now seem to be stabilizing/growing again.</p>

<p>[Randolph</a> College - Strategic Plan](<a href=“http://web.randolphcollege.edu/strategicplan/faq.asp]Randolph”>http://web.randolphcollege.edu/strategicplan/faq.asp)</p>

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<p>The good news is that Antioch’s main campus reopened to students last fall [Historic</a> Antioch College reopens to students - Antioch College](<a href=“http://antiochcollege.org/news/archive/antioch_college_reopens.html]Historic”>http://antiochcollege.org/news/archive/antioch_college_reopens.html)</p>

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<p>There’s your answer, annasdad (per #59). But honestly - it was just common sense; while I didn’t have numbers to dimensionalize the scope (and thank you, bclintonk, for providing them), just common sense tells you that the financial situation for the top colleges wrt endowments is a completely different thing from the financial situation for non-top colleges.</p>

<p>And high endowments are precisely what enable colleges to attract smart students who can’t necessarily afford them, which I should think you’d be grateful for.</p>

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<p>Good news for whom, Jym? There are always fools to be parted of their money. As long at is 100 percent private, Antioch can continue to be an academic pit. But there are students who are convinced that joke of a school is worth spending a few years at.</p>

<p>Mini’s Chicago famous friend – Bill A–should be considered to lead this school.</p>

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<p>PizzaGirl, you’re going to have to help me here.</p>

<p>How does:</p>

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<p>My point was that schools can rise from the ashes, xig. It is not the same progressive institution that it was decades ago, but I would venture to guess that there are worse academic pits out there. Again, just a guess.</p>

<p>And am talking about the main campus in Ohio, where Coretta Scott King went.</p>

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<p>I understand, Jym, but some institutions do not deserve another chance, unless it comes without public funding. The school left people stranded before. Stranded with their broken dreams, and this after being subjected to exist in a physically decrepit and intellectually toxic environment. Do we need to give repressive liberalism unleavened by learning a second chance? </p>

<p>If the school can operate in a fashion similar to Hillsdale, so be it, but that would be quite novel for this type of educators to believe in financial self-reliance. In the meantime, I am quite certain that we are not about to run out of space for the ultra-liberals in higher education.</p>

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<p>Repressive liberalism? With all the crappy colleges out there, many that kids get sooo excited about on CC (don’t make me name my least favorites) despite high prices, subpar educations, you want to rag on Antioch?</p>

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<p>…Because you can draw a pretty straight line from higher endowment per student to college reputation or quality and rank for private colleges. And higher endowment schools can provide better aid and not face have declining student quality and or numbers. Or in the opposite case (low endowment) -face a slow death spiral.</p>

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<p>Maybe it’s the public Us that are in the so-called “death spiral?”</p>

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<p>[Message</a> to all faculty, staff, and students regarding budget lapse (Oct 28, 2011)](<a href=“http://www.wisconsin.edu/news/2011/r111028.htm]Message”>http://www.wisconsin.edu/news/2011/r111028.htm)</p>