<p>im a bit out of the loop, but when will antioch college in yellow springs ohio reopen?</p>
<p>Earliest possible date is fall 2011:</p>
<p>[Yellow</a> Springs News Online](<a href=“http://www.ysnews.com/stories/2009/10/100809_antioch.html]Yellow”>http://www.ysnews.com/stories/2009/10/100809_antioch.html)</p>
<p>before it closed, what was it known for academically?</p>
<p>Mediocrity?</p>
<p>In this economy I’m surprised it would reopen. Lots of schools it competes with are having trouble filling up with paying students.</p>
<p>what caused it to close? it seemed to in hellstorm when it did…</p>
<p>They bled it dry establishing an “empire” of university campuses in the far corners of the country. The more they bled it, the worse the undergrad product and the lower the endowment. Eventually, they ran out of students and had to close.</p>
<p>i don’t think all those antioch universities are closed though…</p>
<p>this is interesting</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>None of them are closed. They bled Antioch College’s endowment dry funding the creation of the far-flung operations and then simply shut down the college part, keeping the rest of the stuff.</p>
<p>It’s a perfect example of why I am very leery of liberal arts colleges that take their eye off the core business and launch into grandiose expansion into this and that and the other thing. Dilution of the endowment (i.e. supporting more stuff with the same endowment dollars) undermines the financial foundations of a school, usually more than the increase in bottom-line revenues due to the expansion.</p>
<p>Antioch College had other issues, but as recently as 30 years ago, it enjoyed a very strong and respected brand.</p>
<p>The earliest it will re-open is 2011.</p>
<p>As for why it spiraled downward, well, let’s just say that the '60’s never left. To get a really dead-on idea of the college atmosphere, read the student guide’s write-up (yes, the faculty pot-smoking room and even the fact that the average student changed gender at least once is true!!!)</p>
<p>Still, the college did think outsie the box and reveloutionize colleges by creating the co-op program, started by its founder, Horace Mann. Yellow Springs itself is still an extremely desirable community to live in, drug laws are lax (a real plus for druggies and the open-minded in conservative southwest Ohio), it’s the hometown and current home of Dave Chapelle (I’ve actually seen him when I passed through town before), and the college itself is pretty but “worn”, whcih they will be fixing.</p>
<p>Honestly, this place is a lot like Earlham, but with a better surrounding community and a little more…weird. With some money back in it, it could really be a top-tier LAC (think on par with Oberlin). At one time, it was a top-tier LAC. I hope it can come back.</p>
<p>Don’t underestimate how much “a little money behind it” really means for an LAC to be viable, let alone good. Without an endowment, a college is 100% dependent on student revenue to keep the doors open. To get off the ground without an endowment or students is an almost Heculean challenge.</p>
<p>did the new owners of the yellow spring campus “inherit” some of the old endowment?</p>
<p>
Yes they [url=<a href=“http://www.ysnews.com/stories/2009/08/082009_college.html]did[/url”>http://www.ysnews.com/stories/2009/08/082009_college.html]did[/url</a>]. However, $20 million is not much for a LAC endowment. LACs typically have endowments in the $100 millions (and the wealthiest are over $1 billion).
In the 1950s and 1960s Antioch was considered a top LAC. If you were looking at schools like Swarthmore or Reed, then you would likely be considering Antioch as well.</p>