Ithaca investment banker proposes transforming Wells College into boarding school
An investment banker in Ithaca has proposed a new use for Wells College while maintaining the Aurora institution's educational history.
Dr. Alan Biloski, senior managing director of Brock Capital Group, detailed his plan in an interview with The Citizen. The concepts include boarding schools for kindergarten through 12th grade, international students or low-income rural children. Each idea is modeled after existing boarding schools, such as the Keystone Academy that has sites in China and Singapore and the Milton Hershey School in Pennsylvania.
An international boarding school, Biloski explained, could attract students who attend English language boarding schools in other countries, such as India and South Korea. The schools have high tuition — more than $60,000 a year, he said — and excess demand.
"They could cede some of their students to Wells to basically populate that campus," Biloski said.
The Milton Hershey School was founded in 1910 and has students from kindergarten through 12th grade. While it is based in Pennsylvania, Biloski noted one-third of the school's students are out-of-state residents. A similar school on the Wells campus could get students from the surrounding rural areas and out of state, he said.
A boarding school for low-income rural children would be based on the SEED Foundation's existing work in urban areas. The foundation has schools in Baltimore, Los Angeles, Miami and Washington, D.C. More than 1,400 students attend the four schools, according to the foundation's website.
Biloski said rural counties face many of the same problems — alcohol and drug abuse, poverty and lack of access to libraries — as cities.
"We thought we could use (the SEED Foundation's) franchise model, together with some altruistic capital, to create a rural model," he added.
Wells College has not accepted Biloski's proposals. He submitted his plan at the end of June and received an acknowledgment in mid-July. On July 31, he spoke to the college's asset divesture committee about his boarding school idea.
The virtual meeting lasted 45 minutes. Biloski said the feedback was positive. One trustee asked him how he would be successful raising money for this venture when the college was unable to generate enough revenue before it closed this year. He responded by noting the differences between fundraising for a liberal arts college and a boarding school, which he says is in demand.
Biloski highlighted successful boarding schools, including Union Springs Academy in Cayuga County and the Princeton International School of Math and Science in New Jersey.
"Do I have a guarantee that this is going to work? No," he said. "But there's lots of options to do this. I know if you don't try, the probability of success is zero."
One day after Biloski's presentation, he received an email from a Wells trustee notifying him that while his ideas "have merit," the college opted to launch a formal request for proposals. A follow-up conversation with another trustee yielded a similar response — that the college wants to explore alternative uses.
The revelation frustrated Biloski, who also had discussions with the state attorney general's office and state Sen. Rachel May's staff to build support for his proposal.
Wells must submit an asset disposition plan to the state attorney general's office for review. The college has not forwarded that plan, Biloski was told, so the attorney general's office does not yet have a role in the process.
Biloski has offered to travel to Aurora to meet with Wells College's leadership. Aside from a phone call with a trustee and what he described as mostly one-way email exchanges, there hasn't been a lot of communication about his proposal.
"I've volunteered to come there and they have not shown any interest. Zero," he said.
Wells College owns several properties in Aurora and has sold at least five since the closure announcement in April. The college is also selling the Ruth P. Thomas House , which was used as the president's residence.
The fate of the campus has not been decided. Although Wells leaders have not granted interview requests, the college said on its website that it is gathering feedback from the community and working with the attorney general's office on an asset disposition plan. The process is expected take months and won't be finalized until sometime next year.
Government reporter Robert Harding can be reached at (315) 282-2220 or . Love Get our local education coverage delivered directly to your inbox.
Online producer/politics reporter
