<p>According to this report many elite colleges and universities are on a financially unsustainable path, and face a potential 'death spiral.' </p>
<p>Is a new ranking system needed to shed light on these at risk institutions?</p>
<p>Perhaps it would be interesting to compare Bain’s assessments of colleges’ finances with those of *Forbes<a href=“although%20the%20latter%20includes%20only%20private%20schools”>/i</a>.</p>
<p>[Is</a> Your College Going Broke? The Most And Least Financially Fit Schools In America - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/schifrin/2013/07/24/is-your-college-going-broke/]Is”>Is Your College Going Broke? The Most And Least Financially Fit Schools In America)</p>
<p>See also
<a href=“http://www.thesustainableuniversity.com/[/url]”>http://www.thesustainableuniversity.com/</a></p>
<p>I don’t think a “ranking” would be useful. In terms of deciding what school is right for a student, I think that it is a question of looking at the outward signs of health. For instance: If the school is building and acquiring real estate as opposed to rennovating and selling then you can assume that the institution is viable for the next four years. If the department has professors who have been there for a long time and there are no signs of turnover, then the school is probably a good bet. I don’t think it matters much if one school has the 45th place and another has the 74th on a financial ranking. It matters if it has the major that my son wants, with good professors teaching the classes, and it has the orchestra that he wants to play in because he loves music, and has other students who share his interests.</p>
<p>All paths are subject to adjustments. If you have falling admissions stds you were not an elite school. There is much low hanging fruit were cutting costs or increasing income would be easy. I think the less competitive low endowment schools are the ones in real danger.</p>
<p>Bain is a consulting company. The other author of the piece runs a private equity firm. I’m sure they’d love to be hired by colleges. A consultant needs paying clients.</p>
<p>Dianeydad, </p>
<p>Over the arc of 4 years our children may face fewer course offerings and those that remain contain more students, fewer tenure track & more adjunct professors hired, etc…</p>
<p>Barron’s,</p>
<p>The Bain piece identifies significant structural and cultural barriers that could make ‘low hanging fruit’ less readily achievable.</p>
<p>In real times of financial stress those items are soon forgotten. Unproductive Depts can quickly be cut just as Cornell did. Many have already made far tougher changes. Many single-sex schools went coed.</p>
<p>Good in-depth article. Thanks for posting.</p>
<p>Yes, there are plenty of colleges and law schools that will no longer be able to justify their costs. They will have to discount their tuition too high to find students, and they have little endowment to fall back upon, and much of their student body will move to online courses. </p>
<p>By the way, there has been a 40% decrease in the number of persons applying to law school over the last 10 years. That occurred after an enormous increase in the number of seats in law schools during the 1980s and 1990s.</p>
<p>I read an interesting piece about a for-profit college that is closing. The college blamed it on a change in federal regulations that made it hard to receive Pell grants if the student had not received a high school diploma or GED. Those students had been a large part of that college’s enrollment. In addition, that college also could have faced sanctions for a high federal loan default rate. </p>
<p>Republicans in Congress have made it difficult for the Dept. of Education to crack down on the for-profits that are committing the most abuse of federal aid.</p>
<p>Democrats in Congress have made it difficult for the Dept. of Education to crack down on the non-profits that are committing the remainder of the abuse on federal aid.</p>