If you keep up with higher education news, you have already read about the decision to close Sweet Briar College. This story hit close to home, in part because I am a professor and in part because I graduated from a small liberal arts college.

My biggest question is why the administration took so long to tell the students and faculty. By making the announcement in the spring semester, the administration seems to have harmed students who will be looking to transfer and faculty members who will be looking for new jobs. More reading on the faculty members’ situation is available in The Atlantic.

Given the general demand for students, I assume the students will be able to find new college homes, though their options might be be somewhat more limited than if the announcement were made in the fall. Most of the Sweet Briar College faculty members, however, will be in an incredibly tough bind. Most academic hiring happens during the fall semester.

With a nearly $100 million endowment (some of which is supposedly restricted), one wonders whether the administration could have kept the school open for one more school year, for the benefit of the faculty and students looking for a place to land. Alternatively, what prevented an announcement this past fall? Perhaps administration worried about students and faculty leaving en masse if given longer lead time, but if the school is closing anyway, I do not see why that would be a problem. Perhaps creditors played a role?

Also, I wonder why the school did not make a more desperate and direct plea to their alums. Instead of abruptly announcing that the school would close, why didn’t the administration say that the school would close unless they raise X dollars in Y time period?

As outsiders, we obviously do not know all the facts, but, in any event, it appears to be a sad situation.