Dive Brief:
- Sweet Briar College is not the first institution to announce its closure before attempting to re-enroll students, and others have reopened after being closed for years.
- Antioch College in Ohio graduated a class of 21 students this past spring after being closed from 2008 to 2011.
- Antioch offered the first class of students free tuition, acknowledging it was going to cost a lot of money to rebuild trust in the college’s brand.
Dive Insight:
Three popular transfer choices for Sweet Briar College students have agreed to give enrollment refunds to those who want to return to their original school, now that it is staying open. Agnes Scott College in Georgia as well as Hollins University and Mary Baldwin College, both in Virginia, are offering refunds. As of mid-July, Sweet Briar reported enrolling nearly 300 students, a mix of new students and returning ones. When the board of trustees announced this spring that the school would close, there were 530 women enrolled, a portion of whom have since graduated.