How can one judge the financial strength of a liberal arts school? Obviously, one can look at the endowment but that doesn’t tell the whole story. What else?
I keep reading stories about how some smaller schools just aren’t going to make it. At what level of LAC should one not be concerned about that? How would one determine that? I’d love to find a way to compare schools financially.
Forbes has a rating system.
@twoinanddone the most recent Forbes article (at least online) seems to be from 2017.
Imo, it’s trying to shoot a moving target. Don’t know how Forbes assessed, but you’d need to look at enrollment success, admit rates and matriculation, retention and grad rates, faculty attrition and/or obvious increase in adjuncts, and some info that’s out there, somewhere, about faculty salary trends. Throw in the state of the physical campus and any building projects. More than the endowment, though percent of endowment used to operate canbe a hint.
Plus, info about their current/recent fundraising efforts and successes. Different colleges have different powers to increase giving, different sorts of alum bases to try to tap or different strengths in their development teams. Jmo.
Yes, the percent of endowment used toward operating costs is an indicator of financial stability. Any program changes, such as decreasing majors, department size, decrease in faculty benefits, increase use of adjuncts, state of facilities, turnover of key administrative positions, is the institution meeting its enrollment numbers. Look through issues of Inside Higher Ed.
I like to pay attention to recent enrollment trends. Declining enrollment ultimately leads to financial problems.