THE FUTURE ECONOMIC CHALLENGES FOR THE LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES
THE FUTURE ECONOMIC CHALLENGES FOR THE LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES
复制标题
文理学院未来面临的经济挑战
作者：
M. Mcpherson;M. Schapiro
在过去的25年里，美国文理学院经历了传统市场的持续萎缩。高中毕业生的数量下降了21%，从1976年的320万下降到1993年的250万，这加剧了对申请者的激烈竞争。最近，来自其他教育服务提供商的竞争日益激烈？从20世纪60年代公立学院和大学的大力扩张开始，到现在风险资本家突然进入营利性教育领域，这一趋势还在继续。给私立文理学院的招生市场带来了压力。过去，学校的生存依靠的是教员的贫穷、招生主任和预科学校校长之间的微妙关系，以及与校友之间的“老派”关系，而现在，这些学校依靠的是四色小册子、营销总监、精心策划的资本活动，以及精心制定的定价和折扣政策——相比之下，航空公司的定价显得直截了当地。毫不奇怪，在这一剧烈变化的时期，以任何合理的标准可以被称为“文理学院”的学校数量急剧下降（尽管认为保留这个绰号有用的学校数量保持稳定）。仅存的200多所这样的机构（美国总共有3000多所学院和大学）可以期待一些有希望的机会，包括扭转人口下降的趋势
Over the last twenty-five years, America's liberal arts colleges have endured a steady shrinkage of their tradi tional market. The number of high-school graduates declined by 21 percent, from 3.2 million in 1976 to 2.5 million in 1993, promoting a ferocious competition for applicants. More recently, a rising tide of competition from alternative providers of education services?beginning with the vigorous expansion of public colleges and universities in the 1960s and continuing now with the abrupt entry of venture capitalists into the world of for-profit education?has put a squeeze on the market for private liberal arts colleges. Schools that once subsisted on a combination of genteel poverty among the faculty, tweedy relationships between admissions deans and prep school head masters, and "old school" ties with the alumni now depend on four-color brochures, marketing directors, meticulously planned capital campaigns, and elaborate pricing and discount policies that make airline pricing look straightforward by comparison. It is not surprising that during this period of dramatic change the number of schools that could by any plausible measure be called "liberal arts colleges" dropped sharply (although the number that found it useful to hang onto that sobriquet held steady). The two hundred or so such institutions that remain (of a total of more than three thousand colleges and universities in the United States) can look forward to some promising oppor tunities, including the reversal of the decline in the population