Jon Baker posted the following to the Antioch College Alumni & Community Facebook group.
Antioch has the commendable goal of making higher education affordable, allowing those who can’t pay for an Ivy League education to get a college degree. No one can fault the College for this endeavor. However, how they handle financial aid is another story. The goal is great; not so the execution.
So what does it cost to go to Antioch? According to the College’s website, the 2025 Cost of Attendance (COA) was $52,533. This includes $36,000 for tuition, $4,600 for housing and $3,100 for the meal plan. Adding in books and supplies, co-op expenses, medical insurance, student service fee, CG fees and other fees gets us to the $52k+ figure.
But none of the current students is paying this amount. All of the current 126 students receive financial aid including grants, scholarships, and/or federal student loans. The average amount of aid received is $35,865. The students actually pay only about $10,000 or less each per year. In today’s world that certainly is an affordable amount for a college education.
However, this means that students are really only paying about 11% of the cost of their education — total net student tuition and fees for 2025 was $1.2 million; the College’s operating expense that year was $11 million. In 2022-2023 the national average was 46% (Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2025, New York: College Board). The College does recognize this as a problem. In the 2025 Auditor’s report on Antioch’s finances the College stated that one of its “key strategies” for “maintaining and sustain its financial stability” is by “adjusting financial aid packages and increasing student-derived revenue.” An excellent goal, though yet to be achieved.
But there’s another problem. Due to its precarious financial position, Antioch is actually paying a substantial penalty to participate in financial aid for students. In order to participate in the Title IV Student Financial Assistance programs, an institution must meet specific standards of financial responsibility as defined in federal regulations. One of the standards is to maintain a composite score of at least 1.5 out of a possible 3.0 for the combination of equity, primary reserve, and net income ratios. If an institution falls below 1.5, the Department of Education (DOE) requires it to participate in additional monitoring activities. If an institution falls below 1.0 it can continue to participate in the programs under provisional certification for three years but must have additional monitoring and reporting requirements and pay a surety (penalty) to the DOE.
So how did the College do? Antioch missed the 1.0 rating for the last two years coming in with a score of 0.6. As a result, the College paid $261,958 in surety to the DOE on June 30 of 2024 and 2025. It is believed that the College will again miss the 1.0 mark this year, necessitating another penalty payment and reaching the end of the three-year provisional certification period. Out of its very limited resources, the College paid over $1/2 million in penalties for failing to meet minimum standards to provide financial aid.
Giving students an affordable education is a great goal. So is maintaining the financial health of the institution providing that education. We are extremely concerned that Antioch’s failure to do so puts the students and their aid packages in jeopardy.
