Curriculum, Not Finances, Most Important to a College’s Survival

To the Editor:

The article, “These 3 Colleges Are Closing. They Share Some Key Traits” (The Chronicle, March 6), implies that the “traits” that matter in a college are all about finances. No. The first question about any institution of higher learning ought to be about the curriculum. Was it providing a good education? Should students have been enrolling there if they want to learn what is recognized as important to know, and what is in fact important to know? If they were, and then finances did not work out, they can represent a problem for higher education in general. If they were not, then the students were making the right choices by not attending, and the closures do not represent a general problem but rather indicate that the system of higher education in general is working as it should.

Murray Leaf
Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Political Economy
School of Economic, Political, and Policy Sciences
University of Texas at Dallas