Two New Mormon-Friendly colleges planned

The Deseret News reports --

Two separate groups of educational entrepreneurs are planning to open private colleges in the next few years aimed at Latter-day Saint students who are not admitted to Brigham Young University or its campuses in Idaho and Hawaii.

Nauvoo, Ill., and Moapa Valley, Nev., are the sites of the proposed schools, to be known respectively as Nauvoo University and Desert Valley Academy. Both of the planned schools have already established Web sites — nauvoouniversity.com and desertvalleyacademy.org — as well as school administrations, boards of directors and plans for housing and instructing students in a "Mormon-friendly" environment secular universities can't match, say those who are spearheading the efforts.

Spokesmen for both groups have talked with top leaders of the LDS Church about supporting their endeavors but were told the church is not currently interested in expanding into higher education beyond its existing campuses.

Both groups say they are basing their business plans on the success of Southern Virginia University in Buena Vista, Va., which was formed by a private group of Latter-day Saint businessmen and educators based on the values and standards at BYU. It opened its doors in 1996 with 76 students and has since grown to attract several hundred per year.

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