Re: #318 “drive to a bar”
Maybe you mean walk to a bar to avoid DUI issues on the way back. Or a fraternity party where the booze may be free and the ID check lax.
My mother’s family highly, highly valued education. Her mother and aunts went to Radcliffe, Vassar, and Wellesley; her uncles married women who had gone to Newcomb, William Smith, and Mills. In her generation, six out of seven girls born before 1943 (i.e., who started college in the '40s or '50s) went to a women’s college, and the seventh was devastated to have to go to Northwestern because she was rejected at Smith and Vassar. Every one of those 12 women was fiercely proud of and loyal to her women’s college. Of the girls born since 1943 in the end of my mother’s generation and mine, the count is 3 out of 28 (and it was 2-for-27 until last year, when the very last kid in my generation started college with her horse at one of Sweet Briar’s rivals). In the past 55 years in my family, precisely one girl has gone to her mother’s women’s college . . . and she transferred there (Smith) after finding her original co-ed college (Colby) too small and isolated. In the next generation, there is only one girl whose mother went to a women’s college. (That may change if the current student has daughters.)
That’s indicative of the challenges women’s colleges face in attracting students who pay full or nearly full tuition. They don’t seem like the mainstream anymore.
By the way, those lines would have made Jim Sinegal quite happy as it was part of Costco’s raison d’être. However, there is one problem with the list: it does miss the attention (perhaps responsibility) devoted to its customers. There is a reason why Costco calls its customers …members! Without this primary concern, the company loses track of its role. Costco did take of its own by offering a better workplace and the employees responded by offering a better performance. But Costco has not been successful because it paid its employees higher wages; it has been successful because it offered a very good value to its members. Along the way it negotiated with suppliers and restricted the markups.
Now, compare that to the education model used at many colleges! It does indeed take of its own, and over and over again. The attention to financial matters has been on the backburner as the “market” absorbed costs that far exceeded both inflation and decency. The answer to most problems was not efficiency but the ability to beg for more money and increase the price to transient customers which were at the risk of being seen as a nuisance and distraction to the real objective: that elusive research and publishing that --again-- exists to please the insiders.
If Costco had been directed as a college, his “best” employees would be in a cozy second floor spending their days analyzing the products that sold years ago and measuring what certain packages did not respond to the demands. They would produce reams of documents that only their counterparts at WalMart or Aldi might read. Having to visit the real store below and spend time helping customers will be done via a few “super members” who would have been given an extra discount. Over time, collapsing under its own dead weight, the prices on the items will be much higher than the competition but discounts would be offered to Sec * residents, and the rest of the customers would be charged a premium. Facing bankruptcy, the stores would close and the coffers would be used to “take care” of the second floor residents!
And THAT is what is happening in education!
Wellesley also has Babson and Olin pretty much adjacent.
They couldn’t find 300 girls with enough money to make it worth the college’s while, who met a basic academic standard. It’s not like there are loads of rich Americans with a decent education out there who don’t go to college and are just waiting for an ad from an expensive, mediocre single-sex college with a reputation for a history of racism. Time to face facts.
A 57% six year graduation rate is bad for a small LAC that is somewhat expensive. 57% reflects SBC’s 75% freshman retention rate – that is the telling stat. SBC’s product couldn’t attract enough customers willing to enough tuition for enough years. Simple as that.
The low 6 year grad rate wasn’t due to SBC students not being taught , flunking out and thus being unable to obtain a dgree. SBC students were voluntarily transferring out of SBC in large numbers. Those departing students take their remaining years tuition dollars to other schools where many of them would eventually earn degrees.
Six year grad rates are also hugely impacted by admissions selectivity. Yale retains 99% of its freshman and has a 98% six year grad rate. That is due almost entirely to the quality of the Yale students; it is not a result of the quality of Yale’s teaching. The best and most demanding schools have the highest grad rates. 180 degrees opposite of the “diploma mill” idea. Harvard is 97%. Williams is 95%.
SBC had a tough time filling seats. The seats they were able to fill required them to give very very large tuition discounts. So probably a lot of kids enrolled and gave SBC had a try because it had a good price as much as anything else. Then 25% of the kids SBC managed to enroll bailed after one year. More would bail after a second year. You can’t keep the doors open if the dogs won’t eat your dog food.
P.S. The 50% overall grad rate being produced by the American higher ed system is apalling and an indictment of our current higher ed system. Which is pretty well optimized to produce huge numbers of college drop outs. Also it reflects a gigantic waste of money. My opinion is that those results reflect a brain dead policy that thinks that every kid should get a 4 year college degree. Imho, all kids these days need more education, but we massively overspend our education dollars on traditional 4 year residential college – expensive, inappropriate, unsuccessful and watered down. From a societal perspective, it will actually be a good (albeit painful) thing if a lot of 4 year colleges go out of business. But that’s another conversation.
I don’t know that SB could FIT in 300 more. That may be one way of explaining numbers, but as some are saying, it misses the practical reality.
@momneeds2no, are you the parent of a student at Sweet Briar?
Agreed. A residential LAC with a student faculty ratio of 1 : 6 (or 1:5 depending on the source) should do better job of “transmitting the material”. It’s not like the students were abducted a dropped unknowingly on SBC campus. They chose that environment. it’s seems that experience did not positively reinforce that choice. So yes seething definitely mediocre about the product.
" Agreed. A residential LAC with a student faculty ratio of 1 : 6 (or 1:5 depending on the source) should do better job of “transmitting the material”. It’s not like the students were abducted a dropped unknowingly on SBC campus. They chose that environment. it’s seems that experience did not positively reinforce that choice. So yes seething definitely mediocre about the product. "
Maybe they knowingly chose it because of the huge discounts that SBC dangled in front of them, only to realize that money isn’t everything?
No but I just don’t believe that SBC failed because the rural womens LAC model is doomed. IMO there most definitely niche market. I contend that SBC did not pay attention the market (apps and yield) nor adiquately service it customers (low grad rate).
I wonder what the consulting firm hired to revamp SBC admission department has to say…
“Maybe they knowingly chose it because of the huge discounts that SBC dangled in front of them, only to realize that money isn’t everything?”
Exactly. HYPS reject 95% of the people clamoring to attend, many/most of whom would pay full freight for that privelege. People WANT that product!!!
SBC was stuck in a bad business situation – enrolling small numbers of so-so students likely enticed by the low price being charged and not very likely to stay for four years.
^
The failure of one school does not necessarily indicts the entire model of gender colleges, let alone residential colleges. One might posit that what is in danger is when the supply far exceeds the demand for a particular product. Schools that operate in isolation (without a consortium of affiliation) will need deep pockets and a high level of selectivity to survive.
@momneeds2no Do you know if that consulting firm completed its recommendations? Or were they still in the process. I would like to read that information as well.
I don’t know why you’re not hearing the message from those of us affiliated with women’s LACs that women’s LACs ARE a hard sell - even those which are
a) in urban or at least not-quite-so-rural areas;
b) have men nearby; and
c) have historical prestige that Sweet Briar doesn’t.
I believe that Sweet Briar has historical prestige. Maybe the “snobby vibe” put off certain demo graphics?
What’s your connection to Sweet Briar?
What snobby vibe?
They were working toward a 10:1 ratio, for several years. But each step has repercussions. Think about it.
Not all LACs and womens LACs are the same. There’s many qualities that go into a brand/product.
SBC’s combination clearly wasn’t selling. I’d never heard of SBC until I started school at UVA. Even at that time (80s) it was known as a finishing school where you could bring your horse to college. Only the most retrograde frat boys still did the traditional road trips out to Sweet Briar for dates.
There’s still demand for womens colleges today. But probably not much if your brand still is a place where you could get an MRS degree while riding a pony. The smart guys at UVA and W&L now have lots of smart female classmates to date.