Yali College, a four-year institution operating under the aegis of Yale University, offered a US-style undergraduate education in China's Hunan province from 1914 to 1927. It developed a robust curriculum and an impressive physical plant but collapsed after a little more than a decade. This paper, drawing on new archival research, focuses on the circumstances leading to that collapse. It argues that a deep divide emerged over Yali's form and function, pitting modernisers at the institution's helm against its tradition-minded faculty and trustees, eventually crippling the college. The case of Yali helps us understand the perils of ideological misalignment in education, especially when it occurs in challenging sociopolitical contexts like 1920s China.