In Turbulent Times, 2 Small Colleges Brace for the Worst

This article, by Goldie Blumenstyk, from The Chronicle of Higher Education, will require a day pass or a subscription to the magazine:

About a year ago, Heidelberg College pumped up its spending for a new, streamlined scholarship program, and then promoted its simplified formula so that students would know how much they could get before they even applied.

It worked. Last fall this small, mostly residential liberal-arts college on a campus dotted with Collegiate Gothic buildings brought in the second-largest class in its 158-year history, and, more significantly, a net increase in tuition revenue. It is on track for similar success this year.

At Tiffin University, a newer, more-Modernist campus across town, enrollment has been at least as solid. Thanks to its distance-education program and 11 satellite campuses, Tiffin's student population has risen by more than 50 percent over the past five years, far outpacing growth at other private or public colleges in the state.

Together, these two very dissimilar colleges — located at opposite ends of this town of 18,000 in the farm flatlands of north-central Ohio — present a living laboratory for the variety of experiments and strategies that many small, private colleges are now undertaking.

And perhaps none too soon.