A novelty of the Sussex Vale venture was the so-called apprenticeship scheme which often turned out to be nothing but a system of providing Euro-Canadian farmers with labor that was not only free but subsidized. The scheme, in short, became a system for funneling philanthropic British pounds to colonial exploiters, rather than a mechanism for teaching Indian children the rudiments of English and other academic subjects before placing them in farming homes where they could learn skills needed to adjust to the new, European-dominated economy.

In a number of cases, there was evidence that the so-called apprentices were mistreated and exploited sexually as well as economically. By the 1820s a rising chorus of complaints about the New England Company's efforts, including the 'Indian College' at Sussex Vale, led to investigations and closure.

There were direct links between the Sussex Vale venture and the next notable initiatives in residential schooling in British North America. One tie was found in the person of Rev. John West; the other took the form of the New England Company's transfer of its attention and funds to the growing colony of Upper Canada. West's unique contribution to the history of residential schooling for Indian youths took place at Red River, the settlement at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers that increasingly in the early 1820's became the focus of settlement, Christian missions, and efforts to school Native children in a residential establishment.