I like this one.
It may be a draw for conservative young foreign students – but I doubt a large conservative foreign presence at SBC will do much to attract young American women. If SBC can survive on mostly Chinese, Nigerian, Middle Eastern and Indian students, more power to it. It will be interesting to watch this unfold. Thanks, barrons.
What this worthy of a new thread instead of appending to the long-running one?
In the meantime, what a brilliant idea. And how novel to hit upon the philosopher’s stone of education finance that requires a number of clueless foreigners who have more cents than sense. Isn’t that MHC has diligently sought to accomplish to balance their books? Or should we set the sarcasm aside and stop short of laughing at this “new” plan.
Hint: foreigners with money to spend will most definitely look at a school with more prestige than this glorified barn.
They need to build a mosque on campus ASAP. Hopefully they still have money for that in their endowment.
Well, it’s not a totally crazy idea. Maybe they can get the rich foreigners to pay a lot, and attract American students with big scholarships. Will this “preserve” Sweet Briar in ways the alumnae actually want, though?
Bryn Mawr has taken this route and greatly increased its number of international students over the last 10 years or so. They’re simultaneously promoting the high int’l percentage to Americans as an exciting multicultural, worldly community. Makes sense to me.
yeah, but BM has a hook: chance to cross register at an Ivy, including joint degree programs./
Not to mention the prestige of being one of the 7 Sisters - and as we know, many international families able to fund an American education are quite keen on prestige.
Yes, and you’ll find borrowed pages of that playbook at every “Seven” Sisters with uneven results. That was part of the financial plan at Mt Holyoke. The question is not about how to do it but about who can pull it off. A school that has been clinging to a model that led them to oblivion is far different from one that can demonstrate a viable model in THIS decade. Every one of the successful school has an angle that appeals to students, including a sizeable number who are weighing the all-female school against top universities and even the HYPS of this world.
What schools does Sweet Briar really compete with for students? Build a list of 20 schools and chances are that 15 --if not all-- will be obscure, even from members of this highly educated forum. Hardly the message one takes to London, Singapore, or Seoul. It might work in the EUA where many students happen to be very rich and not too keen on studying. But then you have the gender issue!
There is a limit of hanging your hat in trying to sell a school as a country club.
It seems that the main unique selling point for Sweet Briar is the horse angle.
And I’m not sure how much the horse angle would appeal in Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, or whatnot. And the ability to ship a girl’s personal horse to college with them is reasonably practical for girls living within 200 miles or so of Sweet Briar, but not so much for a girl 8000 miles and an ocean away…
Also, while I realize that some of those they’re targeting are likely from rich, culturally conservative overseas areas, where the daughter’s say may not be so important as the dads, to the extent that the daughter DOES have a say, if she’s 18 and contemplating traveling to the USA to go to college, is a rural area really more attractive than a small town or big city? It would seem that part of the appeal of going to college in the USA would be to partake in American culture. If the school in question is basically isolated, it’s harder to do so…
Wellesley seems to have a high percent of international students, IMO. And many appear to be wealthy.
Maybe they should add camels…
@hunt, good that we can finally agree on something. However full-pays there prefer horses.
https://hub.mtholyoke.edu/_media/DescribingMHC.pdf
Interesting read. What talking points could SBC offer?