Dive Brief:

• Ten private liberal arts colleges in Pennsylvania are joining forces to save money and improve their course offerings.
• The Pennsylvania Consortium for the Liberal Arts will help its colleges collaborate on academic program improvement, faculty development, diversity issues, compliance and risk management, study abroad, library resources, and administrative services.
• One collaboration project may be using teleconferencing to offer courses from other schools, such as a joint language course planned by Juniata College, Gettysburg College, and Washington & Jefferson College.

Dive Insight:

We’ve seen this recently on the technology front, and the pressure colleges face to keep their tuition costs in line in the face of declining enrollments will probably foster more collaboration in the future. The other seven colleges in the consortium are Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Swarthmore, Dickinson, Carlisle, Franklin & Marshall and Muhlenberg. The consortium is funded by a three-year, $800,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.