It may be that the single sex college is an outdated idea but the higher ed bubble doesn’t help.

Los Angeles Times reports.

Single-sex Deep Springs College faces its own fork in a rural road

The names of the two colleges — Sweet Briar and Deep Springs — are redolent of bucolic campuses. One is in rural Virginia, in the foothills near Lynchburg, and the other is in California’s high desert ranch lands east of Bishop.

But the names of the schools are now linked by something else: the struggles of the dwindling number of single-sex colleges to survive or possibly become co-ed.

While the circumstances and finances of the two schools are quite different, the debates about their futures raise questions about how important single-sex education has been for women at Sweet Briar and men at Deep Springs – and to what lengths alumni and others will go to sustain or end those traditions.

Over the last 50 years, the ranks of women’s colleges have been greatly reduced. By letting men in or by closing altogether, their number dropped from 230 to 46, according to the Women’s College Coalition organization. Much of that decline occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s as many men-only schools, including those in the Ivy League, started to admit women. Very few colleges remain just for men.