Another reason to close the college was its "financial unsustainability", says Ms Chan.Yale-NUS had hoped eventually to secure as much private funding as do toptier American liberal-arts colleges, but by March had raised just a measly $320m.Concern about the financial model "started the conversation" about what to do with the college, says Ms Chan.But Pericles Lewis, the first president of Yale-NUS, who also sits on the board, notes that it had "a few years left" to achieve its fundraising targets, and could have doubled the number of students it admits.Some professors and students suspect there were other considerations at play.Political activism is frowned upon in Singapore, which has been ruled by the same party since 1959.Yale-NUS students were more likely to express their political views and were better organised than their peers at other universities, says Cherian George, the author of a recent report on academic freedom in Singapore.Ms Chan poohpoohs the notion that the government was keen to muzzle mouthy students. The government, she says, knew what it was signing up for when it launched the college.At the opening of the new campus in 2015 Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore's prime minister, said that the college would have "to adapt the Yale model to Asia".
