may provide lessons on how to deal with cloudy weather and massive production drops in years ahead as solar energy wins more converts. al jazeera berlin. >> solar energy or not our website is up and running, you can get the latest news and views, the address aljazeera.com. night. you know that old riddle that begins when a tree falls in a forest? it's worth noting since single sex education at the college level has been slowly disappearing. the sweet briar college case is just the latest. it's not over yet. it's an uphill battle.

one of my guests tonight is doing all she can to help. we'll talk more broadly about single sex education as colleges and universities continue to close. later on our program, we'll take you back to israel and ask our reporter how early reports of a razor-close election ended up in a resounding victory for prime minister benjamin netanyahu. it's the inside story. if you looked at a list of all the women's colleges in the history of the united states, you'll quickly notice a pattern. in most cases, the dates note that when a school closed, went coed, or merged with a larger institution the all women's

college is an endangered species subject to many pressures of any college or university. then wider challenges, wider opportunities for women. earning degrees, completing on time, even heading on to grad school. when the board of sweet briar college in lynchburg, virginia chose to immediately close its doors, that got our attention. >> even though in recent years our marketing and admissions efforts have brought us significantly greater numbers of applications, the percentage of accepted students who have chosen to enroll in sweet briar is at an all time and unsustainable low. in addition to these endeavors, we also pursued alternative models for education such as coeducation, mergers, and collaborations with other institutions. unfortunately, it is now clear

that none of our strategies have provided nor will they provide the solutions sweet briar could require to continue to operate as a higher education institution. >> how are they so convinced? what was embedded there in the trends, applications, the number of women who actually enrolled after being accepted that convinced them there was no choice but to close and quick. for decades, there have been more women in college than men. why haven't women's colleges managed to maintain a niche by attracting a steady but small number of high school seniors. i'm joined by jesse martin,

sweet briar college class of 2002. and pat mc guire. >> for the record we asked sweet briar to join the conversation but they would not accept the opportunity. i don't want to put you in the position of speaking for all women but why was a higher education for women attractive to you? >> i grew up in pennsylvania. i'm from the northeast. when i was in high school all my friends were looking at small liberal arts schools that were coed and they were private and i wasn't looking in the south and certainly not for single sex education or institution but i discovered sweet briar when i was visiting a relative in virginia and upon my visit i

discovered a glorious campus, a treasure. it's 2,500 acres. it's a gem. and the students were warm and friendly and kind and after i received an acceptance letter i had a fantastic scholarship follow that and it sealed the deal for me. i wouldn't be who i am today if college. >> and in the course of those four years, did that sense that i belong here, i can do this only deepen or where there times when you're snowed in with all the gals in the dorm and you think i could be somewhere else. >> great question. little bit of both. it's in a rural location. d.c. is three hours away. so there were times where

we -- we could just be who we wanted to be and explore whatever we years. >> who is the woman, the young woman, who decides to attend an all women's institution for four years? >> at trinity today the young woman is very different from the ones that went to trinity when i was a student in 1970. we were mostly still young women from the catholic enclaves of the east coast. but we were mostly chit, mostly middle to upper class young catholic women. today the women who enroll in women's colleges are african-american and la tina. there are many low income women for these populations who are new populations in higher education. they love women's colleges. they're not in the past for them. very much in the present.

they want to be empowered. and by the way, we enroll a significantly number of older women as well in their 30s and 40s who come back to school to finish degree that they deferred. so the new women's college is significantly more urban. it is significantly representative of new populations and higher education and it's very accessible to low income women when is not the history of women's colleges. >> that's a positive and up lifting profile. why have they had such a rough half century. >> when you look at that data because i've studied the original 230 and in fact about 90 of the original colleges closed or merges but a lot of them were small catholic colleges who worked for nuns for free. then those women left the con vent and the economic model collapsed. it was different in schools

already paying their faculties. so the original institutions are still around. a few of them went coed . but they are still largely female institutions. 70 to 80%. women's colleges seem to be the only sector where you take one man and suddenly you're not a women's colleges anymore. catholic colleges have a lot of muslim and baptist and indian students. the modern women's college has -- we are a modern institution and the women's colleges in fact 63% of all of the women's colleges that still operate as women's colleges are growing in the last ten years 63% grew. about 40 peek grew smaller. some surely will continue to go out of existence. but so will small liberal arts colleges.

the main issue is not being a women's college but a small liberal arts college and location also counts. >> that was a tough challenge for sweet briar where it is you can't simply pick it up. it's 2,500 acres of loveliness and move it close to a subway line or a cool place to be. >> at sweet briar ten years ago there was an understanding and no official public announcement that the school needed to change course but we were not blind and we were aware what other womens colleges were doing, neighboring colleges. hollins expanded to be a university. randolph-macon as well. while the decision was

devastating to me it wasn't a shock. wasn't something out of the blue entirely. i think that it's a challenge that sweet briar has been facing for a long time and maybe if it hasn't been up front and center there's always been an underlying current that it's been a risk and change course or consider alternatives. >> i remember such famous names as vassar and sarah lawrence when they went coed and the backlash from alumbar nigh. for you, that wasn't an option? if they said we allow men we can make it? >> to be honest, i don't think the school would be the same if it were to go coed. it is steeped in tradition and i don't know how it would fold and become coed. when the founder of the school died she said i expect this land

and estate to be used for all women's education. >> is this fight over? >> no. students are graduates, current students, faculty is fighting the decision in an effort to reverse it. >> doesn't the board have a final say? >> it has made a decision and i think it's going to be an uphill battle to reverse course. i'm hopeful it's successful. at the same time, i'm afraid the damage has been done and it's going to be difficult to convince the students accepted for fall of 2015 and encontrol and feel confident that they can graduate with a degree. i would also worry about the faculty and staff. bringing in new faculty and staff you lose the incentive to join the college because there has to be an underlying concern that unless there's a major sustainable. >> we'll be back with more

inside story after a short break. when we return, the strategies that work with a 21st century student body when you accept the idea that all women's colleges have a place, what's working to keep the applications and the first years coming. stay with us.

welcome back to inside story on al jazeera america. sweet briar college, educating women since 1901 may be heading for

arts

school. >> as you look at the landscape, are we near a dwell point? are the remaining schools sort of in a steady state where they can hang on with the assets they have and the young students coming in and sort of maintain a

presence for women's education in the overall mix. >> i don't think any small private liberal arts college can stay just a small private liberal arts college if all you do is undergraduate lib cal arts education. you said young students. >> you said young students. in fact, many of these thriving ins really solutions today have a healthy appalachian. adult women were the driving force to change the whole complexion of undergraduate education. in america women's colleges were in the for front. the college of row can she will in new york, small women's college, six campuses with thousands of students serving the greater new york area. that was the model we used when we diversified at trinity. you have to become like a small university. that's what happened to us. you have to get beyond the liberal reports and into the disciplines that show the

students the bridge between work life and college. if you don't show the bennett to life long earnings, students will shy away from liberal arts. you have to connect it to criminal justice or psychologist or nursing and health care. that's what modern women's colleges and liberal arts colleges are doing that. that's the wave of the future. >> before we close there may be parents watching or college age or aspire college age people watching. give me the elevated pitch for a woman's college. you're talking to rising senior, or someone who's just starting the search. you say listen to me, i went to one of these places, here's why it's great. >> it is just an unparalleled

liberal arts education that allowed me because of the smaller faculty-student ratio it allowed me to form bonds at the school that are sustainable to today. the networking, once you've graduated, the career services center the outreach from graduates looking to approve graduates to join their companies is phenomenal. >> it's the old girls network. >> that's exactly right. >> it's too late for me, but i'm sold. great to have you with us. >> thank you. >> we'll take a closer look inside the results of the israeli elections. pole officers have been trying to explain how they missed prime minister benjamin netanyahu's decisive victory. hours after the polls closed,

they were describing benjamin netanyahu's likud being tied. the new vote and new government the prime minister hopes to form. it's "inside story," stay with us. >> the new al jazeera america primetime. get the real news you've been looking for. at 7:00, a thorough wrapup of the day's events. then at 8:00, john seigenthaler digs deeper into the stories of the day. and at 9:00, get a global perspective on the news. weeknights, on al jazeera america .

>> you're watching "inside story" on aljazeera america. i'm ray suarez. the margin of victory for style prime minister benjamin netanyahu in yesterday's israeli elections caught pollsters by surprise and made the israeli leaders early and confident declaration of victory look like an act of bravado. he was right. the early exit polls that showed a tie were wrong. netanyahu won a clear victory over the zionist alliance of isaac herzog. he is now moving ahead to

forming a government. we are joined now from jerusalem. late in the going everybody was saying this was a tie. what happened? >> everybody went by the television exit polls ray and were wrong. they got it wrong. for whatever reason, whether there were technical difficulties or it was the voter turnout or it was where they were doing some of their exit polling, they got it wrong. a number of television stations got it wrong. in fact, to the point that herzog made a victory speech, saying essentially that they're going to come to power and put their government together. netanyahu also made a victory speech. we had two leaders claiming victory last night. it doesn't get more bizarre than that on an israeli election night. >> by the time the real shape of the numbers started to come in, was it time for the president to move away from his earlier call for a national unity government

and go ahead and say to prime minister netanyahu no, bibi, you take the first crack? >> essentially for netanyahu he's always had the edge when it came to any eve of an election. even initial exit poll results it would have been hard going for the leftwing to try to put together a coalition government. they had a chance, though, at that point but with a six seat edge now netanyahu having 30 seats more than the zionist union, i think nobody calls into question the idea that he can do it, he can go it alone put together a coalition that will easily give him 61 needed seats probable 67 seats. the president is going to do a news conference and no doubt give netanyahu his mandate to put together a government. he'll easily put together the coalition. the question is there is so much

haggling over cabinet posts and committee posts and how much money people are going to get for different things, so there's a lot of horse trading to go on in the next few weeks in israel. >> what should those of us who are far from israel, watching it from outside be looking for from the once and future prime minister? more of the same or does this strength then knelt knelt's hand when it comes to security policy relations in the neighborhood, his approach to the united states? >> i think the columnist said today, you know, a lot of people woke up this morning hoping for a new bright dawn and what they got is they woke up to more of yesterday, in essence. nobody feels that there's going to be much change inside israel, but certainly there are great questions being asked from washington and through the

parliaments in europe. how serious was netanyahu, when he started to get very extreme according to the leftwing, three days before the election. he largely was pretty silent throughout the campaign. he started to panic when he saw preelection polls a couple of days before the election and started coming out and saying things like that's the end of two-state solution, it's irrelevant and we're going to start expanding settlements. how much does netanyahu believe that he said? were they just campaign promises to rally the right around his port or does he mean it? if he means it, he's going to come under a tremendous amount of international pressure over the things he said. even washington was questions it today. the palestinians are certainly disappointed with the outcome and say they'll continue to put more pressure on israel through the international stage including the international criminal court. >> that's al jazeera's dana lewis, joining us once again from jerusalem. thanks for joining us for this edition of "inside story." get in touch on facebook, follow

usen twitter and watch us next time in washington. i'm ray suarez. suarez. >> nogales, arizona. a bus has arrived filled with people being deported from the united states. >> right now we're headed to san juan bosco, a shelter here in nogales where the mexican immigration authorities have picked the people who were just deported, they take them there so they have a place to stay on their first night back in mexico.