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A study of how money is spent at three different liberal arts colleges. The title link, abnove, takes you to the Inside Highezr Ed story about it. Here is a PDF of the full report. 

The three (kept anonymous in the study to encourage full release of data) are similar in their size (1,560 to 1,648 enrollments), mission, academic offerings, the breadth of student activities and athletics, and loyal alumni. Students at all three institutions say that they picked them for their personalized approach to education and close contact with faculty members. Students give all three institutions high marks. (Lapovsky consults with colleges on their financial strategies; she said only one of the three colleges is a client.)

But the three institutions are also very different: in what they charge students, in their expectations of faculty, in their support for student activities, and in their admissions competitiveness."

Scott Jaschik once again covers an important topic in a useful way. His story of the institutional direction planning for Augustana College (IL) touches all the bases. It's a story that has its parallels in the major challenges faced by small private institutions which did not, pre-recession, have large, highly noticed brands:

Now, in the face of the economic downturn, the college is making some adjustments -- which Steven C. Bahls, its president, calls the "post-recession strategic plan" for a liberal arts college. That means several new majors focused on pre-professional interests. With new majors, Bahls says the college may need, over time, to move away from a tradition (rare among American colleges) of paying faculty members equivalent salaries across disciplines; the plan also means symbolic and real steps to be sure that the college can attract diverse students, beyond its historic (and shrinking) base of Swedish Lutheran families.

No one will mistake Augustana for a vocational institute. Even with the changes, this is a college that offers numerous modern foreign languages as well as the classics, a college that, true to its immigrant roots, has a Scandinavian major and instruction in Swedish, a college with majors in philosophy and art history and theater at a time when such programs are being threatened at much larger and wealthier institutions. But the changes are nonetheless significant and, to some, jarring.

Most valuable, the presidents said, was to seek senior leaders who can think about the work of the whole institution, rather than be sidetracked by devotion to their own special areas.

"You want people who can take that big picture and give up something they normally would have fought for in their own area—because it's in the best interests of the institution," said Susan C. Scrimshaw, president of the Sage College.

Just how bad can it get at small, private colleges? La Grange is the oldest private college in Georgia. Subtitled, "Georgia's LaGrange College faces financial challenges as parents and students struggle to afford the cost of a private college, this article in National Crosstalk by Don Campbell takes us deep into that school's budget crisis and planning: "Rated highly for its affordability as a four-year private college, LaGrange has survived the toughest economic year in memory with a balanced budget, according to outgoing President Stuart Gulley, but not without some tough decisions that will be felt even more in the coming year."