Drama is what Dartington College in Devon is all about but this time the principal and his advisers have really managed to involve the local community - howls of protest this week greeted the decision to leave its picturesque setting.
In the new knowledge economy towns lobby to keep their higher education institutions in the way they used to fight to keep their factories or shipyards.
But tragedy for Totnes is fabulous for Falmouth where the arts college - which now has university college status - is keen to cement a merger with an arts institution with an international reputation.
Dartington has certainly made advances to Falmouth which announced earlier this year that the Dartington board was focusing on a "re-location package to Cornwall as the preferred choice, and University College Falmouth as a perfect institutional match". Falmouth is part of the Combined Universities in Cornwall (alongside Exeter and Plymouth universities) which hopes to gain funding for new buildings.
That might allow tiny Dartington - only 680 students - the shelter of a bigger organisation without having to admit to a disappearing in a merger - and getting a new building. But the Falmouth principal, Alan Livingston, has no hesitation in describing this "exciting merger".
At the time Dartington principal, Andrew Brewerton, said: "We believe that the combined strengths of Dartington and Falmouth are capable of creating one the most exciting creative centres of contemporary arts practice and creative entrepreneurship outside of London."
Now he says on the college website that he wants Dartington to remain "possibly the smallest, but certainly one of the most vibrant, arts colleges in the UK". He is also flirting with Plymouth University and the seaside town of Torbay as possible partners - so perhaps Falmouth shouldn't count its chickens.
But though the talk during the coming battle over Dartington's future will be about artistic integrity and cutting edge drama it really boils down to money.
Professor Brewerton says the college is not in financial problems but the long term sums are clear - it is not just a matter of £20m to do up the present buildings.
The real costs of teaching there can be seen in what Dartington charges international students: nearly £8,000. But the college receives less than £5,000 for its UK students (in combined fees and grants from the funding council). It loses money on each student.
A large institution can make economies of scale and subsidise expensive courses with cheap and popular ones (business studies is a favourite cash cow). Dartington has expanded by 50% in recent years but all the courses tend to be intensive - and hence expensive - so it doesn't have that option.
Can Totnes - or Devon - come up with the money as well as the passion?
