College Sells Rare Books, Furniture to Fund Operations

  • Share
  • Read Later
Getty Images

Lambuth University in Jackson, Tenn., has just 400 undergraduates and has been plagued by financial and regulatory issues for years. In April, the college announced that it would close June 30th.

But to fund operations leading up to the closing, the school has been auctioning off rare books, furniture, and other artifacts that had been accumulating since the school’s founding in 1843. Among the highlights of the auction was a 1790 English Walnut Georgian Breakfront Bookcase, which sold for more than $14,000, according to The Jackson Sun. A signed first edition of a Mark Twain novel sold for $950 to a member of the school’s board of trustees. Sixteen pianos sold for a total of $71,700. According to the Sun, “The goal of the auction was to finance Lambuth’s last classes so seniors can finish their degree work before the university closes for good.”
[time-link title=”(Read about how the graduating class of 2011 is the most indebted ever)” url=http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/05/11/congratulations-class-of-2011-youre-the-most-indebted-graduates-ever/]

Lambuth is a special case: a tiny broke college on the brink of closing, selling everything that isn’t nailed down in order to pay the professors for the last week of classes.

But think about it. If Lambuth — friggin’ Lambuth — has $71,700 worth of pianos (and that’s $71,700 at a firesale auction, which means the retail value of those pianos is multiples of that amount) to sell off, can you imagine the gold mines other colleges must be sitting on? My alma mater, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, just voted for an $880 per student fee hike.

UMass Amherst has 20,873 students, meaning that the fee increase will be $18,368,240.
[time-link title=”(Here’s one way to help your kids with repaying their student loans if they’re bad with money)” url=http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2069211_2069210_2069195,00.html]

But UMass has about 50 times as many students as Lambuth; if it has a proportionate number of pianos, it would be able to raise $3,585,000. Now granted, I’m assuming that Total Value of Piano Collection to Student Body is a constant ratio across all colleges. But that would be enough to cover about 20% of the cost of that fee increase. Obviously I’m making these numbers up, but my point is a real one: With student loan debt and default rates rising at breakneck pace as colleges raise prices with impunity, shouldn’t everything be on the table to bring prices down? Or, at least, shouldn’t selling antiques that no one cares about be on the $14,000 English Walnut Georgian Breakfront bookcase?

But when colleges contemplate move like these, they are often dragged through the mud as Brandeis was when it announced plans to close to Rose Museum and sell its art.

Here’s the thing: No one is suggesting that colleges light their treasures on fire. Rather, I’m saying that they should sell stuff that’s in storage to other people — or institutions — who will appreciate it more.

There’s no reason for colleges to be increasing fees when they have art that hasn’t seen the light of day in 20 years that could be sold.