Lured to College Thanks to the Ability to Rent a Matisse

Margaret Ritten, 19 years old, wanted to go to a small liberal arts college. She was accepted at several good schools across the country. Her choice? A college that would let her rent a priceless work of art to hang in her dorm.

“I was looking at Bard College, Occidental and Oberlin,” says Ms. Ritten, now a freshman. “But I came to Oberlin because I was so impressed with a school that trusted students to handle Picassos and Matisses.”

I’ve heard lots of reasons for why a students choose to go to specific colleges, but this is the first time I’ve heard someone say they chose to go to a school because they were trusted with priceless works of art to decorate their dorm rooms with (Oberlin College’s Art Rental program began in 1940 and allows students to borrow art for $5; students line up more than 22 hours in advance for this privilege). There is also a student who says he decided to stay at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis. instead of transferring to one of the Ivies because Lawrence hosts The Great Midwest Trivia Contest, a 50-hour Internet-broadcast trivia event held every January. At William and Mary, students love the Raft Debates, in which professors pretend they’re stranded on a deserted island and argue why their discipline will save humanity (see this episode of This American Life). I chose my school mostly because it was affordable and had a good reputation, but if money weren’t an issue, I suppose I would have taken these kinds of campus traditions and offerings into account.

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