Barnard College for women, the poor, proud relation of Columbia University (endowment: $75 million) was out to improve its financial lot. Barnard, whose red brick buildings of institutional classic stand along Manhattan's upper Broadway, only a stone's throw from Columbia's city campus, has an academic reputation which only such women's colleges as Vassar, Wellesley and Bryn Mawr can equal, and a faculty (borrowing from Columbia's) that most others cannot. But last year, asking no more tuition ($700) than most other top schools, Barnard (endowment: $5,000,000) operated at a $136,166 deficit.
Before starting out...