"Any new institution, regardless of merit, would face the same challenge"

This! It's proving to be a LOT harder to build reputation in this world than it is for most startups. Higher Ed brands are societally entrenched in a way that some people define their entire social hierarchy around it (which we don't feel is particularly progressive of a worldview). This is partly why there's been limited pressure to innovate in higher ed, in order to build a new school you first need a lot of capital, then work to get accredited, then build a strong reputation. Some of the strongest barriers to entry of any industry.

I think if you ask: “How much money does it take to go from zero to high repute in 5 years?”. There is one data point: Olin College of Engineering, half a billion dollars.

I’d be interested in hearing if you looked at the Olin model and what you learned from that.

We definitely look to them as inspiration! We've read a decent amount of how they were started. It's more or less the only new prestigious institution founded in the last 50 years. A lot of their classroom pedagogy also aligns with the direction we've been going, more project based and applied. And they've done a great job of sharing learnings back out to other institutions.

They sit more squarely in the research university category, whereas we're closer to a teaching college (where faculty are dedicated to students rather than publishing research). And it's been a capital intensive way to build a college, since they build out a big campus, research facilities, etc.

We've been meaning to build a closer relationship with them to share learnings on the education side, good reminder to reconnect with the folks we know there :)