Nonstop liberal arts? – I’m afraid not

Last week, I received an email from the president of my alma mater, an idyllic, 200 -year-old institution that is perennially listed among the US News and World Report's top twenty liberal arts colleges. The school's endowment recently lost $150 million, a decline of almost 25%. There will have to be severe cutbacks to the budget and scholarships are threatened, he wrote. But, putting a happy face on the situation, the college is still better off than many of its peer institutions, he said. Newspaper reports I have read indicate that the school's losses during the current financial crisis has been typical for institutions of its kind.

Despite his reassurances, I am dubious about my college's future. As we in Yellow Springs know firsthand, longevity is no indicator of what the future may hold for a college. In fact, I question the ability of any small, private liberal arts college to survive for another generation of students. It's not just the current economic situation that is the problem. The whole idea of going away to college to immerse oneself in the humanities is being challenged. With tuition and room and board at $45,000 per year, even in the best of times, such schools may not have been able to continue to compete with public universities and schools that are offering to deliver education in non-traditional ways, such as on-line and limited residency programs. Students seem also to be less interested in great books than they are in learning how to make big bucks.

For me and many others, leaving home and joining a college community was a wonderful experience. Fortunately, my children also got to experience that kind of education. I am saddened by the thought that it is swiftly becoming a thing of the past. My first thought was to get out my checkbook and give to the alumni fund, and I will do that. But I think about all the campaigns and drives over the forty-plus years since my graduation and how hard the school and alumni worked to grow its endowment to suddenly have it reduced by $150 million. Poof! Just like that! $150 million… It would take years of each and every alumnus giving $1,000 per year to even put a dent in that figure. Big corporations are not writing checks for education anymore. The task is overwhelming.

And then we have the Antioch College situation. According to reports I read, the endowment had dwindled to about $20 million. The buildings were crumbling even before the school closed and recently, vacant and without heat, things have gotten much worse. And the Antioch College Continuation Corporation, in the worst of possible times, is hoping to buy the campus, build an endowment, attract students and gain accreditation. Before they survey the condition of the college's buildings, they better survey the condition of the private liberal arts college landscape in general.

If they are to have any chance at success, they cannot try to sell the same product they were when the school shut down. Nobody was buying. The type of education demanded and the means of delivering it are rapidly changing. If they are not willing to recognize this, they will surely fail. The odds are stacked heavily against them as it is. The passing of Antioch may just have been the start of a trend.