Southern Vermont College says it will close this summer

[TexasTowelie]

Another small liberal arts college in Vermont will close its doors for good this summer.

Southern Vermont College president David Evans announced Monday that the school would shut down at the end of the year. He cited declining enrollments, financial pressures, and a recent decision by the New England Commission of Higher Education, the school’s regional accreditor.

“We have done as much as we feel we could have done to turn things around in terms of enrollment and to turn things around in terms of philanthropy,” Evans said. “But we’ve just sort of run out of runway.”

In late January, NECHE notified the school that it was worried about the school’s financial viability, and that SVC would need to show accreditors why it shouldn’t be placed on probation or have its accreditation withdrawn entirely.

Read more: https://vtdigger.org/2019/03/04/southern-vermont-college-says-will-close-summer/

[no_hypocrisy]

1. I hate to speculate, but it may be because it's liberal arts oriented.

My alma mater, Sweet Briar College, suddenly announced five years ago that it was closing due to all the reasons SVC cited. The alumnae jumped up on their feet, filed a court complaint, got the college back. And good news/bad news is Sweet Briar is surviving and growing financially and students but it's now STEM-oriented. No more languages. No more music. No more class English literature. Maybe someday these course of studies can return, but not now.

[TexasTowelie]

2. Maintaining a strong endowment is key for all colleges these days.

My alma mater, Southwestern University, is one of the few liberal arts oriented universities in Texas. While it has a strong academic reputation, the fact that it does not have an engineering or technology program means that there are not as many well paid graduates than in other programs.

A few years ago, gender balance became an issue. When I was a student in the mid-1980s the university was 55% female, but by 2010 it was 62% female. That also had an impact on donations to the endowment fund because of the gender gap in wages among the graduates. In 2013, Southwestern revived is football program after it was cut in 1950. The football team started with 96 freshman volunteering for the team and in the fourth year of the program they won their conference. It was an expensive proposition to start a Div. III program (no athletic scholarships), but the move was successful in addressing the gender balance issue and increasing donations to the endowment.

I wonder if there was a gender balance problem at SVC since it was liberal arts oriented and it also had a nursing program? If the college wasn't creating much wealth among the alums then I can understand why it had financial issues.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Sweet Briar has been all women and independent since 1901.

That's a specific program that does not have the same appeal when women are no longer barred from schools like Yale, Harvard, and Princeton.