In an effort to rebuild its student body and reputation Antioch College is offering incoming freshman a full scholarship for four years, CBS News reported.
Antioch is a very small and private liberal arts school in Yellow Springs, Ohio. It was founded in 1852, but has gone through its fair share of rough periods, especially in recent years.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Antioch was shut down in 2008 and revived three years later by a group of alumni. A tech company that got its start in the 1940s at Antioch sold for a fortune and the school landed a $35 million check. The total endowment was then $52 million.
To bring the school back, Antioch decided in Jan. 2012 to give full four-year scholarships worth at least $121,000 to the next four classes of incoming freshman accepted to the school.
The financial aid deal is under the Horace Mann Fellowship, named after the school's founder, and will end with the 2015 freshman class. Since offering the fellowship, applications rose sharply and, for now at least appears to be back and operational once again.
"We've offered the Horace Mann Fellowship during these formative years to being the most academically capable and gritty students to the college," Micah Canal, dean of admission, said in a statement. "For the right kind of student, one with the drive to dig deeply at an academically rigorous private college and apply those learnings on full-time work placements, just as they take a significant role at a 160-year-old start-up and rethink what a higher education ought to be in this young century, it is an unparalleled opportunity."
The fellowship is only for accepted freshmen. Antioch has a very small student body and accepts roughly 75 students per academic year.
"Antioch College is not where you go to join fraternities, play intercollegiate sports or sit in lecture halls with 100 classmates," their website reads. "It's the college for young people who want much more out of the undergraduate experience - students who are intelligent, passionate, and mission-driven... those who want nothing less than to leave their mark on the world."
Antioch is located near the downtown area of Yellow Springs, a small town of 4,000 known for local theatre, music and arts. The school has also improved campus life by renovating 160-year-old residence hall and adding a fitness center, racquetball court, multi-purpose studios and a full-size swimming pool.