Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Poor Pine Manor

"Educating the poor comes at a price for Pine Manor; Newton college looks to retool its finances" by Mary Carmichael, |  Globe Staff, December 23, 2011

CHESTNUT HILL - Half a mile from Pine Manor College sits a house on sale for $11.9 million. The leafy drive that leads to the college is lined by similar mansions, estates that might have sent their daughters to Pine Manor decades ago, when it was a two-year finishing school for the wealthy young women of Boston.

Those women do not go to Pine Manor anymore. Fifteen years ago, as enrollment at many women’s schools dwindled, the college assumed a new identity to attract students: It focused almost all its recruiting on low-income women who showed perseverance, if not perfect grades. Give them hefty financial aid and close attention, the thinking went, and they might flourish.

The move transformed Pine Manor into one of the nation’s most ethnically diverse small colleges - 63 percent of its students identify as black, Hispanic, or Native American - and brought in many students who went on to promising careers in law, business, and health. It gave the school a new reason to exist. It earned press and praise....

But....

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Related: Poor Boston

Unless you are in the top 5 percent.