4 ms·

Why Is It So Hard to Kill a College?

15 points by diodorus 11y ago

omnivore 11y ago
The real problem is the way accreditation works. I've been in higher ed for most of my career and the real issue here is once a college has accreditation they can pretty much operate in perpetuity. Unless they go broke. Sweet Briar was an unusual case because you had a fervent alumni, a dedicated type of institution (all female) and a desire from people to close the place without giving anyone say in the process. The fact that they tried to do abruptly was precisely why the alumni rallied, but they've been screwed because of how it was done. If you want to talk about disruption, here's your trick. Raise enough funds to take a college over and run all of the online programs you want, keep the main campus and do what you want with it, but...ultimately, if you can get the keys to a regionally accredited college, you could do a lot of things. Most people just don't know the sector well enough to really understand how to disrupt it from the inside out. (I obviously do.)
- untilHellbanned 11y ago
  Are you going to do anything?
  - kansface 11y ago
    Raising a hundred? million dollars to "acquire" accreditation via a small college is not within the realm of startups. Perhaps just tens of millions is needed? Even if you acquired a college, turning it into a de facto online for-profit institution would be an impossible sell to professors as an outsider. I think its far more likely that some existing (accredited) college will offer degrees online for pennies on the dollar with open enrollment - perhaps they could start with degrees in eg CS, where online grading is trivial. Disruptive innovations typically start at the bottom.
- mjklin 11y ago
  You seem to be following the plan laid out in Frontline's College, Inc[1]. Find a struggling college that has accreditation, take it all online, rake in dem bucks from online students who get federal loans. [1] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/
- simulate 11y ago
  This is what UniversityNow attempted with its takeover of Patten University: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120709005304/en/UniversityNow-Acquires-Patten-University-Expands-Network-Affordable http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120709005304/en/Univ...
bcheung 11y ago
With how expensive college is, and the fact that kids can borrow money from the government to pay for it, how is it possible for them to go broke?
- kansface 11y ago
  The interest on their endowments does not exceed their operating expenses. They literally live on tuition; raising tuition is often counterproductive as students without aid will choose cheaper schools since prestige doesn't really come into play. Similarly, lowering tuition puts a bigger burden on the school - professors don't have grad students to abuse.
- ghaff 11y ago
  Because they're expensive to run as they're set up today (large administration, tenured faculty--although there's less of that than there was, fancy physical plant). Small liberal arts colleges don't typically have especially large endowments. They don't have access to a lot of the government dollars that large research universities do. And, expensive as they are, they're still constrained in how much they can charge and enrollments are trending downward because they are expensive and the degree isn't necessarily worth a whole lot. (In the case of Sweet Briar specifically and a variety of other schools that are at or over the edge, they're also the victim of changing preferences or demographics: all-women colleges in Sweet Briar's case and many religious schools in the case of a college in my town.)

15 points by diodorus 11y ago

The real problem is the way accreditation works. I've been in higher ed for most of my career and the real issue here is once a college has accreditation they can pretty much operate in perpetuity. Unless they go broke. Sweet Briar was an unusual case because you had a fervent alumni, a dedicated type of institution (all female) and a desire from people to close the place without giving anyone say in the process. The fact that they tried to do abruptly was precisely why the alumni rallied, but they've been screwed because of how it was done. If you want to talk about disruption, here's your trick. Raise enough funds to take a college over and run all of the online programs you want, keep the main campus and do what you want with it, but...ultimately, if you can get the keys to a regionally accredited college, you could do a lot of things. Most people just don't know the sector well enough to really understand how to disrupt it from the inside out. (I obviously do.)

untilHellbanned 11y ago
Are you going to do anything?
- kansface 11y ago
  Raising a hundred? million dollars to "acquire" accreditation via a small college is not within the realm of startups. Perhaps just tens of millions is needed? Even if you acquired a college, turning it into a de facto online for-profit institution would be an impossible sell to professors as an outsider. I think its far more likely that some existing (accredited) college will offer degrees online for pennies on the dollar with open enrollment - perhaps they could start with degrees in eg CS, where online grading is trivial. Disruptive innovations typically start at the bottom.
mjklin 11y ago
You seem to be following the plan laid out in Frontline's College, Inc[1]. Find a struggling college that has accreditation, take it all online, rake in dem bucks from online students who get federal loans. [1] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/
simulate 11y ago
This is what UniversityNow attempted with its takeover of Patten University: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120709005304/en/UniversityNow-Acquires-Patten-University-Expands-Network-Affordable http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120709005304/en/Univ...

bcheung 11y ago

With how expensive college is, and the fact that kids can borrow money from the government to pay for it, how is it possible for them to go broke?

kansface 11y ago
The interest on their endowments does not exceed their operating expenses. They literally live on tuition; raising tuition is often counterproductive as students without aid will choose cheaper schools since prestige doesn't really come into play. Similarly, lowering tuition puts a bigger burden on the school - professors don't have grad students to abuse.
ghaff 11y ago
Because they're expensive to run as they're set up today (large administration, tenured faculty--although there's less of that than there was, fancy physical plant). Small liberal arts colleges don't typically have especially large endowments. They don't have access to a lot of the government dollars that large research universities do. And, expensive as they are, they're still constrained in how much they can charge and enrollments are trending downward because they are expensive and the degree isn't necessarily worth a whole lot. (In the case of Sweet Briar specifically and a variety of other schools that are at or over the edge, they're also the victim of changing preferences or demographics: all-women colleges in Sweet Briar's case and many religious schools in the case of a college in my town.)