TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/052190/0521120.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.3 KB | 120 lines

                                                                                EDUCATION, Page 85

Dollars, Scholars and Gender


Must women's colleges like Mills either go coed or go under?

By SUSAN TIFFT -- With reporting by Kathleen Brady/New York and
Paul A. Witteman/Oakland


    The earthquake that rattled the San Francisco Bay Area last
fall caused $7 million worth of damage at Mills College, a
138-year-old women's school in Oakland. But the tremors set off
by the college's decision to boost revenue by accepting men
have shaken Mills' foundations more severely than any natural
disaster.

    Last week students, many sporting yellow armbands and BETTER
DEAD THAN COED T-shirts, continued to boycott classes and
blockade buildings. The faculty (51% women, 49% men)
volunteered to recruit more female students and teach more
courses at no extra cost if the trustees would permit Mills to
remain an all-female enclave. Alumnae pledged to raise an
additional $10 million in endowment over the next five years.
In response to the pressure, Mills president Mary Metz announced
that the trustees might reconsider their decision if faculty,
staff and students came up with bolder proposals to bolster the
school's finances.

    There is scant precedent for such a reversal. Goaded by
financial necessity, women's colleges have increasingly been
forced to choose between two futures: going coed or going
under. Since 1960 the number of such schools has dwindled from
298 to 93, with more dominoes poised to fall. "Women still
perceive a need for separate-sex education," says Donna
Shavlik, director of the office of women in higher education at
the American Council on Education. "But whether colleges can
continue to offer it and still maintain their economic health
is another question."

    Mills' health is especially precarious. The undergraduate
student body has withered to 777, more than 200 shy of the
1,000 total the administration claims is necessary to balance
its $23 million annual operating budget. Says Mills board
chairman Warren Hellman: "In five or six years we would be
heading into a death spiral." The school's location only
intensifies its recruitment problems. With tuition at $11,900,
Mills often loses students to well-regarded state schools like
the University of California, Berkeley, just ten miles away,
where yearly fees total only $1,500.

    Women's colleges in general have been squeezed by two
powerful trends. One is the baby bust of the late 1960s and
'70s, which has meant a shrinking pool of college-age
youngsters. Single-sex schools get a crack at only half that
decreasing market. The other is the declining popularity of
women-only education. Currently, just 3% to 11% of high school
women say they would consider a women's college. Taken
together, these changes have made it difficult for many
all-female colleges to attract enough students to keep
themselves afloat.

    The demise of some women's colleges, however, has breathed
new life into others. Although the total number of students at
such schools has slipped from 250,000 to 125,000 during the
past 20 years, these women today are spread over a smaller
number of institutions, boosting head counts at many of them.
Since 1970, undergraduate enrollment at the surviving women's
colleges has shot up more than 18%. Two of the strongest,
Wellesley and Bryn Mawr, enjoyed a 6% surge in applications
this year.

    Ironically, the case for single-sex education for women has
never been more compelling. According to the Washington-based
Women's College Coalition, all-female schools have produced
one-third of the female board members of FORTUNE 1000
companies. In science and math, a single-gender environment has
proved particularly nurturing. More than 5% of women at
all-female schools major in the life sciences, for instance,
compared with only 3.6% of women at coed schools.

    The financial gains that go along with coeducation may come
at the price of women's achievement. A recent study of Wheaton
College, which went coed in 1988, showed that the school's men
tended to get the lion's share of attention from faculty. "You
lose something in the process of going coed," says Peter
Mirijanian, spokesman for the Women's College Coalition. "You
can't have it both ways."

    For the all-female schools that remain, survival will
require tough choices. To help brighten its bottom line, Bryn
Mawr decided three years ago to phase out several graduate
departments, pare faculty and staff, and gradually increase its
undergraduate enrollment from 1,000 to 1,200. Russell Sage, in
Troy, N.Y., has repositioned itself, aggressively courting
"resumers" -- women over 25 -- who make up 22% of its
undergraduates.

    At fiscally weakened schools, such tactics may only postpone
the inevitable. The turmoil at Mills could soon be repeated at
Pittsburgh's Chatham College, a tiny (615 students) liberal
arts school, whose trustees are scheduled to vote in October
on whether to admit men. To many young women the rush to
coeducation has created a disturbing, and unjustified,
diminution of educational choices. "Women's colleges have not
become obsolete," maintains Catie Hancock, 21, a Bryn Mawr
junior. "It is other factors that kill these schools. It's so
sad."