The news that Sweet Briar College would close after 114 years of educating women caught many by surprise. But to one veteran educator, it's the culmination of a financial disaster wrought by rising costs, changing tastes, and more affordable alternatives.
An $8.8 million addition to Sweet Briar’s library in November, less than three months before the nationally ranked college stunned students and faculty by announcing it would close at the end of the summer. The school was counting on increased enrollment to save it from financial ruin, but the student population kept dropping.
"They are dealing with a generation of young women for whom so many other options are available."
??Josiah Bunting has led several colleges including Virginia Military Institute and the all-male Hampden-Sydney. He wonders if Sweet Briar’s recent decision to target prospective students from Virginia may have backfired.
"In the state of Virginia, women's colleges and Sweet Briar in particular face an array of choices, excellent colleges and universities of different sorts, all of which are $15,-20,000 a year less than the comprehensive fee of Sweet Briar College."??
And Bunting recalls heading a prep school in New Jersey where the girls told him they would not attend a women’s college.??
"What do you say to a 17-year-old high school senior girl who's also applying to three or four other colleges-- probably coed-- that makes her want to come to your place that does not have boys? Thirty or 40 years ago, that was easy, easily done because those coeducational places did not exist, or they were all male."??
And Sweet Briar faced one more major challenge. Despite offering early retirement to faculty members, deferring maintenance, and draining its endowment, the school owed $27 million and was losing $3 million a year.??
"For all of those reasons, the board of trustees said we are in debt, we simply can't continue to function, pay our faculty decently and our staff, and devote the resources necessary to recruit a sufficiency of women to enable us to balance our budget. It's a very sad thing when this happens."??
Bunting doubts there is any way the college could recover, but a Save Sweet Briar campaign has sprung up with a goal of raising $20 million.