Education in Southwest Ohio -- Item #1

[Charlie in Dayton]

College for Sale

Antioch College in Yellow Springs Ohio has had a long tradition of liberal studies. Stories abound of credit given for numerous activities that fulfilled an agenda rather than a course of study.
Now, Antioch's endowment fund is perilously low. Several of its buildings on campus are closed for lack of maintenance funds. The student body is down to 300 students (from 2400 back in the 60's). In 2007, the Board of Trustees voted to close the school.
After some attempts to secure funding, the school is slated to close June 30, 2008. On March 29, the Board announced that Antioch College is up for sale. The asking price is $12,200,000 -- cash on the barrelhead (this has been a sticking point in at least two previous sale attempts).
If the sale does not go through by June 30, the school will officially close for at least one year.

Further information can be found at Antioch's Wikipedia website
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioch_College >.

[pgwenthold]

I visited Antioch a couple of years ago. An interesting place.

In many ways, Antioch is its own worst enemy. The fact that its endowment is pretty tiny is not a surprise. Students who graduate Antioch do not go out and become rich-capitalists-who-donate-millions-to-their-alma-mater. They end up doing things like heading up non-profit organizations to save a cause that few have heard of.

The students there were extremely smart, but with their own excentricities. One thing that I remember about the campus: the cafeteria did provide non-vegetarian options, mainly for visitors.

[Mr. Skinny]

What PG said.

I just popped into the thread to say that their PBS station WYSO is excellent. It's pretty eclectic, with Folk, Rock, Bluegrass, Jazz, etc.

You can listen to it on the Internet.