Written by: Scott Carlson
Published by: The Chronicle of Higher Education
MBA News Digest Comment: None.
Extracted Content: Now and then, financial experts try to peg the minimum number of students that an average small college needs to survive comfortably. Is it 800, or 1,200? Fifteen hundred?
Certainly those numbers never dipped to 125 students, which is what Sterling College enrolls every year on a remote, 130-acre campus in northeast Vermont. But Matthew Derr, Sterling’s president, prefers to see the college’s attributes — particularly its size — as a strength in a time of economic uncertainty and sliding demographic trends. By staying small, controlling costs, and carving out a niche that appeals to donors — in this case, the pressing issues surrounding ecology, sustainable agriculture, and climate change — Sterling’s future will be more certain than those of bigger colleges with conventional aspirations for growth, Derr says.