Is RPI’s endowment heavily restricted, and does the Forbes financial grading account for endowment spending restrictions?
Fwiw, CalU is -120 and 150 miles away from Clarion and Edinboro, respectively, the schools it’s merging with to form PennWest. So we’ll see how some geographic dispersion works out. The new school officially begins operation in 2 weeks.
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From a discussion of RPI’s downgrade by credit agencies
- Total liabilities have risen from $203.7 million in 2000 to $1.08 billion in 2020, a 428% increase. In that span, total assets have only risen from $1.15 billion to $1.60 billion, an increase of about 40%.
- Total liabilities, as a percent of total assets, have increased from 18% in 2000 to 67% in 2020.
- Total debt (for borrowed money) has risen from $115.5 million in 2000 to $732.3 million in 2020
- Interest expense has increased from $7 million to $33 million over the same time period.
- With the right-of-use lease payments added to interest, total debt service expense for 2020 was estimated to be $40.3 million.
- The Institute’s annual endowment draw (typically 5% of assets) has not covered the annual debt service expense in the seven-year period from 2013-2020.
- In recent years, RPI’s high debt service, research funding gaps, and growing pension liabilities have consumed a high proportion of its cash flow from operations.
- In turn, RPI has reduced capital spending to levels far below the depreciation of its facilities.
https://renewrensselaer.org/findings/
As commonly found in other organization, an underfunded pension plan and construction cost overruns look to be significant contributors.
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Allow me to simply say: 
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My FIL graduated from RPI & was very active with them as an alumni for years. He thought that their financial stewardship was first rate, and he set up a charitable remainder trust with RPI as a recipient. He would be so disappointed to see the financial difficulties that they are experiencing.
RPI has had the same president for almost a quarter-century. This is rare but not unheard of (John Silber, for example), but it’s definitely the exception not the rule. Usually over periods of this length, the challenges faced by the university change, and thus the best person to steer through them changes as well.
I think it’s fair to say that RPI’s reputation has not moved all that much either up or down under Jackson’s tenure. That may be an accomplishment, but it was a lot of money spent to stay in about the same place.
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The Vermont College of Fine Arts, a low-residency MFA-only institution, is ending all instruction at its Montpelier campus and likely selling off or leasing its physical plant. The residential portions of its programs are moving to Colorado College; it’s unclear from the article what this is going to mean for things like NECHE accreditation.
Only the physical campus will close:
“The core of the VCFA experience is connected to the people and relationships that make up this institution—our outstanding faculty, dedicated administrative team, and students bring creativity and excitement for the arts to their studies every day. This will not change, whether during semester work that happens from a student’s home, or during our content-packed residencies.”
The school is not merging with Colorado College; they will just host their summer residencies on CC’s campus. In addition, the school indicates that its accreditation will not be affected.
Frankly, I don’t see this being a solution that will save the school, though.
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VCFA reminds me of Shimer college when it used Illinois Institute of Tech campus but at the end merged with North Central College. Short term solution that hasn’t worked in the past. Seems Vermont will continue to see colleges merge or close.
Let’s see how many campuses will survive at Vermont State University
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This relates to the topic of a Boston Globe article of a few years ago:
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You mean Northern Vermont University?
North Vermont, Castleton University and Vermont Tech will all merge into Vermont State University … all will keep their campuses for now but will be under VSU
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Ah! Northern Vermont was just created a few years ago. 10 or 15 years ago they proposed merging them into UVM but UVM threatened to go private if they pursued that plan.
Here’s one for the 
file: New York Shuts Down Olivet University Amid Federal Money-Laundering Probe
The teaser for the article that came in my email (which isn’t just clickbait no matter how over the top it sounds, it really is a good summary of the content of the article): New York’s education department has closed Olivet University’s two campuses in the state, with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security investigating the evangelical Christian institution’s possible role in a scheme to launder money for criminals in China and the U.S.
Also:
“Tracy Davis, the president of Olivet University at the time of the guilty plea, was recently Dean for Academic Affairs. Her husband Johnathan Davis owns 50 percent of Newsweek… The former official, who retired from DHS after the search warrant was executed, told Newsweek that agents were investigating whether Olivet sponsored U.S. visas for foreign students, mostly from China, who then spent most of their time in the United States working rather than studying and who were paid well below minimum wage. The officials did not say what kind of work the students were suspected of doing.”
San Francisco Art Institute closes after deal to be acquired by University of San Francisco fails.
Actually, the acquisition deal with USF fell through:
Northeastern acquired Mills.
I worked with someone who was on the faculty at SFAI. Based on what they have shared with me, the school was struggling for a long time. I don’t think anyone in the art world is surprised, but it’s definitely sad when a school with a legacy like SFAI closes.
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When Covid-19 first tore through the nation, hundreds of college presidents sent students home, looked across their empty campuses and wondered how they were going to pay their bills.
Northeastern University President Joseph Aoun saw an opportunity. On May 15, 2020, he called six senior managers to his office. “Colleges and universities will be challenged,” he told his cabinet, he recalls. “This may be the time to start looking at mergers and partnerships.”
Over the next few weeks, Northeastern created a specialized M&A team to assess the value and vet the balance sheets of dozens of flailing colleges in the U.S. and abroad. His directive came to fruition on June 30 when Boston-based Northeastern absorbed Mills College, a 170-year-old women’s school on a 135-acre campus not far from Silicon Valley.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/broke-colleges-resort-to-mergers-for-survival-11658239445?st=268rr5ar9bs7m7i
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