You may want to ask the mods to take your d’s first name out of the post.
I’m still struggling to see how this rural college w a student body of 600 and an endowment of only $85 million is going to make it.
The school seems perfectly situated for a boarding school, not a college.
Wells is another example of a college that just seems to keep going but I’m guessing the physical plant costs are significantly lower than those of SBC. Wells has also cut deeply into it’s endowment, put in place paycuts and all sorts of cost-saving measures throughout the past decade.
Seriously … what is the purpose of publishing this interview? He has not talked to anyone yet, does not know if he will be paid, does not know much about anything. Just on par with the school … more platitudes and bumbling! Why speak when you cannot say anything?
He seems to be a remarkable person, and it is easy to applaud how Bridgewater rose from being a middling school to one that seems to answer the needs of a particular group of students. Bridgewater seems to know who they are and are transparent about it. Their website is a joy! Hopefully, the new Prez will find a way to hire the same company to revamp the website of SBC that is … in dire need of a change and a revised image. Well, the entire school is and that is why it seems to be close to impossible.
LOL, I had the exact same reaction Xiggi…but was too busy to post my reaction.
The purpose of publishing the interview is that he’s suddenly a celebrity (as far as academic administrative celebrity goes), and people have a lot of questions for him. The fact that he doesn’t have answers for all of them is actually news, and important news at that.
“And your image of SBC students is 20 years out of date.”
When D was looking at colleges, I had suggested she take a look at Sweet Briar - because women’s colleges were in the running, but I didn’t know anything about it beyond the Preppy Handbook mention. She did do an informational interview here in Chicago with an alum. I asked her yesterday what her impression had been of the school. Her words - “it felt like a finishing school.” When she mentioned being Jewish (in passing, and her Jewish identity isn’t a big part of who she is so it wasn’t as though she was asking for a Hillel or a kosher cafeteria), the alum apparently acted like that was some kind of curiosity and not something they were “used to,” which speaks to this place’s relative isolation culturally. (Grinnell, Iowa is certainly isolated geographically. Jewish kids are not a curiosity there, though.)
Keep in mind that a college’s endowment does not present a true picture. There are colleges with debts that are larger than their endowment. (Some debt is often necessary to spread out the costs of a major building project,) I believe I read SBC had about 15 million in debt.
In any case, the important endowment number is the average endowment per student. By that measure, SBC was not in bad shape. However, there were huge fixed costs to running such a large campus with old buildings. I’m surprised they didn’t try to sell off some of their 6,000 acres of land much earlier. While some land may have been deed-restricted against development, I would think some could have been sold.
They had enough assets that they could have had a rational winding-down over 2 years that would have served their students and staff well. However, it will take a major miracle to attract enough students to continue now.
^^
Sweet Briar has aggressively tried to reduce its liabilities in recent years. Since 2008, the college’s debt load has decreased from a net amount of $31 million with seven outstanding bonds to two bonds for an outstanding sum of $25 million.
One of those two bonds was issued in 2006 for $20.8 million, with the purpose of refinancing several existing bonds at more favorable rates, Shank said in March
That sum exceeds the amount of money the school currently has in its unrestricted endowment, which stood at $19 million as of Dec. 31, according to Vice President for Finance and Administration Scott Shank.
And how much is the annual amort on that debt?? Peanuts. Planning new SBC is well underway.
Barrons, from all people here, I assumed that you’d understand terms such as default on bonds
Assuming payments have been made according to schedule since June 30, 2014, the estimated balance of the 2011 bond as of June 30, 2015 is around $8.92 million, and the 2006 bond is $16.5 million. That is a total of $24.8 million in bond debt. The college spends about $2 million a year servicing that debt.
Two million dollars might be peanuts but avoiding a default might require substantial releases from the restricted funds as the liquidity covenants do NOT appear to be respected at this time.
While it is possible that the agreement in place has addressed the bond defaults, it will take more than the wishful thinking and banal Powerpoint linked above that looks like a term project of Columbia or Peabody!
What are the chances that the army of consultants hired by SBC in the past decade left the previous boards with plenty of the same fodder. Academic consultants make a living producing similar stuff with similar results. We know where SBC was in 2014 and is now.
Gawd, I had enough “mission this” and “mission that” when TQM first came about.
Notice the age set of the contributors harkens back to a different point in SB’s strengths, isn’t the more recent grads, who might be influenced by softer years. But they need to get cracking. I know they have to get buy-in, but hope they’re revved up for more, fast.
Last thing lenders want is a piece of a closed college. That’s how real world lending works. You fix it as you go. Paper is just words. Not life/death. Bet Greek bonds are fun to read too.
FYI…technically and legally the new board and administration can do nothing but continue to plan until after July 2 when they pay the first payment. So questions with answers that appear vague would have to be at this point, because they really can not be answered until they have control of the college.
Still don’t understand, Barrons, where you think the students are going to come from.
You can 500 people in the world to do just about anything.
So why didn’t they? That’s where theory hits reality. They must have believed if you kept discounting costs and scores, you not only got seats filled, but you got some award for being generous and caring. But, nice doesn’t solve problems. The draw has to be more than empty seats, barrons. And they can’t afford to give product away for free.
They obviously COULDN’T, Barrons. That’s the whole point. What makes you think that something they couldn’t do when they were MORE flush with cash is now something they can do when they are LESS flush with cash and have well-publicized instability?
You might be able to get 500 people in the world to do anything, but can you get 500 women between 18 and 22 years old to pay $60k and move to the middle of no where (although lovely) to go to a school that has no guarantees it will have enough courses or be there in a year, when they have to give up other options to do so? I think not. There was someone on CC who posted she was transferring to Agnes Scott. Do you think she’ll give up her spot there on a chance at Sweet Briar?
I think maybe some rising seniors will return, and a handful of juniors, very few sophomores and even fewer new freshmen. I’d be shocked if there were more than 100 willing to return, mostly seniors and those with no where else to go. The will also start to lose accreditations. Will there really be the intellectual stimulation with 5 in a literature class? Can they offer all the science and math courses? Will any sports team have enough players?