Ghost Town U.

The winds off the plains of western Nebraska drive swirls of grit and tumbleweed past the brick laboratories of Hiram Scott College, and the 1,500 students have all departed. The only people on guard at Hiram Scott nowadays are three patrolmen who take turns touring the 280-acre campus. And near by lives Hiram Scott's last president, Dr. Walter Weese, 53, a slim, sandy-haired scholar from Yale, who survives on savings and uses up the rice left behind in the college's empty kitchen.

"I'm getting pretty good with the dishwasher," says Dr. Weese, an expert on Chaucer, "and I'm a pretty good cook too, but you lose your steam. You look up and half the day is gone, and all you've done is wash the dishes."

Built seven years ago on the fertile farm lands of Scottsbluff (pop. 14,000), the college is bankrupt, a poignant relic of the rush for a college education in the 1960s. When it folded eight months ago, the 30 faculty members scattered, like the students, leaving behind nine vacant buildings, 5,000 unsold yearbooks, 75 microscopes, an airplane, $7,300,000 in debts and Dr. Weese.

Hand-to-Mouth. Hiram Scott's fate has struck 119 other small colleges and seminaries in the past three years, and another 254 may be broke by 1980, according to the American Association of Colleges. The problem: with few endowments or research grants, many survived hand-to-mouth on tuition fees. In recent years, the recession has driven students to cheaper public colleges. When the enrollment boom ended, financially weak colleges went bust.

Hiram Scott had special problems of its own. It was one of five colleges founded by small-town businessmen on the model of Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa. All were inspired by Millard Roberts, the hard-sell Presbyterian minister who transformed Parsons during the early 1960s into a high-cost "second chance" for dropouts. Parsons eventually lost its accreditation and earned the nickname of "FlunkOut U." Four of the colleges modeled on it, including Hiram Scott, were destined for bankruptcy.

Henry D. Kosman, president of the Scottsbluff National Bank and a former trustee of Hiram Scott, now shakes his head as he recalls the town's rosy dreams: "We figured the economic impact of a college would be as big as any industry." With other local businessmen, Kosman raised $5,463,000 and hired a president who flew around the country to recruit students. When the college opened in 1965, one Chamber of Commerce official crowed, "We are not just a sugar-beet and cattle-raising town any more." But Kosman admits, "We were short of cash from the word go."

To survive, Hiram Scott had to keep enrollment at capacity, but each semester 30% dropped out, dissatisfied with the school's limited curriculum. Instead of looking for ways to keep what students it had, Hiram Scott expanded its recruiting staff to the point that it cost $700 to corral a student who would pay $2,500 in yearly fees. In December 1970, the trustees declared bankruptcy, dividing the cash on hand to pay each employee $80 in Christmas week wages. Last August, the college had only 225 applicants for 1,500 places, and the trustees closed up shop for good.

So far, no local organizations seem to want the only slightly used campus. The trustees now are trying to sell it to the National Rifle Association or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as a conference center. Bondholders might settle for 150 on the dollar, a common practice in the case of bankrupt businesses. "Gosh, it's a tremendous bargain for somebody," says Banker Kosman. Adds Dr. C.N. Sorenson, another trustee who sank $ 130,000 of his own money into the college: "How so many people who are supposed to know so much could be so wrong, I don't know."

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