June 2, 2006

Academic Entrepreneurship at Dickinson College

By ALVIN P. SANOFF

If Dickinson College were a corporation, Wall Street would view it as a classic turnaround story. Less than a decade ago, the liberal-arts institution was struggling. Applications were down. Enrollment was declining. Net tuition revenue — the amount a college is able to keep after subtracting money spent on financial aid — was plummeting, as was the college's bond rating.

To make matters worse, Dickinson's endowment was dribbling away. "We were spending 6 percent

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