Asymmetrical Information

It's always kinda' interesting to see uber-idealistic people get an education as to the centrality of cash, and not in the "root of all evil" sense that they are often indoctrinated in at an early age, but in the sense of "nuthin' happens without it". Of course, the education often doesn't take, as we see here, with the alumni getting mad instead of getting their checkbooks out. Then again, perhaps this just an example of revealed preference.

Expect the alumni to start pressing for a state bailout of the college.

I agree with Will, above, where are the alumni with their checkbooks?

I love this paragraph from the story.....

"True to their training in community organizing, alumni created a breakaway fund to raise money for Antioch College, which university officials are hoping to reinvent and reopen in 2012. Aiming to raise $40 million in two years, the alumni board plans to leverage the money to guarantee them a voice in shaping Antioch’s future, Mr. Daily said."

Yeah, growing endowments and capital formation really are activities best left to people with "training in community organizing", as evidenced by the fact that the alumni apparently just realized that the Dear Ol' Alma Mater is attracting customers about as well as Montgomery Ward.

To be honest, I'm surprised more small colleges aren't closing their doors. Most offer no more cachet than good state universities (and less than the elite state universities) and don't have anything like the breadth of programs. And the costs of the small privates are at least double.

To be honest, I think the idea that every student should find his or her 'perfect fit' without considering the cost (and borrow how ever many tens of thousands are needed) is as bad as the idea that an engagement ring should cost 2 months of the groom's salary. But at least De Beer's gets called on it regularly (http://www.slate.com/id/2167870/) -- the higher education industry seems to get a free pass on peddling their much more expensive fantasy.

(And yes, I do have a kid going off to college soon ;)

they should have pushed the red button at 1000 students, not 100... People don't send their kids to a school unless you can show they get what they pay for... all the political stuff is fine, if the acedemics are rigorous. Sounds like maybe that wasn't the case. In order to keep an institution viable you have to avoid getting stuck to a particular time or set of circumstances. Education can overcome many things, but apathy from alumni and prospective students isn't one of them. I graduated from a small private, and the minute they thought there was a problem, they said "we may have a problem" 10 years later a school in much better shape with a more modern set of programs... it can be done, but not in a vacuum. It's time fo the alumni to wake up and smell the toast burning. Get acedemics back, and YES open the checkbook...

best of luck to them, but the cautionary tale, is about how easy to fan the flames of revolutions, how difficult to keep the fire lit in the long run.

D

Yeah, hard to believe - who wouldn't want to attend an academic institution that thinks of itself as the boot camp of the revolution - and imagines that making fun of people who wear Nikes is, y'know, boot camp?

The "less talk, more questions" line encapsulates the vapidity of the Boomer generation perfectly - there's nothing to question, really: nobody wanted the product they were producing, and so the institution ceased to earn its keep. The best evidence of the poor job it did is the alumni's unwillingness to listen to a president who had obviously diagnosed their problem: when you're a private institution that produces sullen, resentful alumni who dislike their surroundings and want unprofitable work, you shouldn't be surprised when they don't produce a generation that's interested in following in their footsteps, and they won't return with lucrative gifts, either.

Oddly, this made me think radical education's time was again about to come.

If you read Leon Levy's autobiography (it's not brilliant, he was dying of cancer at the time) about building Oppenheimer and then Odyssey Partners, he specifically mentions Bard College, and the trouble it got itself into. He was there to rebuild its balance sheet, and it remains, I believe, the foremost 'radical' college in America.

That's just the contrarian in me of course thinking that we are due a bout of student radicalism: no generation will ever again be as large, relative to society, as the Baby Boomer cohort was relative to its.

Maybe the US government has to be involved in an unpopular foreign war, begin spying on its own citizens, and then start a draft again?

PS Megan Penn is quite capable of pulling down your dorm and selling it for condos: even rich universities have been doing that in America.

I think Antioch is most likely a victim of the common application process.

Now that prospective students can apply to dozens of private colleges by filling out a single web form, those colleges see many more applications. If a college accepts the same number of students it always has, it is very likely to see a significant shortfall in the incoming freshman class. In the past, 125 acceptances would have yielded a sufficient new class, now those 125 probably have other offers.