Why the Business of Small Colleges No Longer Adds Up

For much of recent history, intimate private colleges and universities have thrived here, as much a part of the region’s identity as tumbledown stone walls and scenic coastlines, the local highways bristling with signs signaling that another quintessential New England campus is just an exit away. But the business model for the small liberal arts school is much less viable these days, as the population of high school graduates continues to decline and more young people are skeptical of, or unable to bear, the hefty cost of a college degree.