“If a state has a decent-to-good state university, I’d think that LACs that are ranked at or below the same level would be in danger.”
The size of the state university matters, too. I’ve been hearing that folks in Iowa are frustrated by the number of Illinoisans at U of Iowa and want to increase the freshman class by a few hundred in order to accommodate more in-state kids. Well, that’s not a big deal one way or the other for U of Iowa, but if you’re a Coe, or Wartburg, or Loras, or Cornell College, 500 more Iowa freshmen going to U of Iowa might be the difference between life and death.
Wow, Trinity has a large endowment for a LAC its size.
@HappyAlumnus - I can see your point with respect to SC. Especially because Clemson is not overwhelmingly large and feels like a smaller school. However, I think the percentage of OOS students at a LAC impacts its financial stability as well. I don’t see Furman (USNWR LAC #51), with an endowment of nearly 593M (@201k per student) and 72% OOS students, struggling because of Clemson (USNWR nat’l U #62). In contrast, Presbyterian College (USNWR LAC #124), a rural, religiously affiliated college with an endowment of only @ 83M (@74k per student) and only 35% OOS students, could be in danger IMHO. My guess (I don’t know whether, or to what extent, PC receives funding from church) is that PC is dependent upon having enough students in SC who want to attend a religiously affiliated school and can afford private school tuition. Seems like a small applicant pool to me. Wofford falls somewhere between Furman and PC.
Look for a school that has declining revenue from tuition and fees.
SB had a 16% drop in tuition/fee revenue over the past several years. Assuming a 4% annual payout, the $2.4 million of lost tuition/fee revenue would have required SIXTY MILLION DOLLARS (!!!) of incremental endowment to stay even.
It is about tuition much much much more than endowment. Note that the schools with high endowments typically have no problem filling their seats with paying customers. College are like airlines – if they don’t fill their seats with customers willing/able to cover operating costs, they don’t survive.
Also look for a school with a significant drop in its USNWR ranking. SB dropped 50 slots in the last 10 years. Declining yield, declining admissions selectivity, declining freshman retention rate, declining six year graduation rate, declining student expenditures. USNWR measures and rates on all of that stuff.
@Overtheedge, great point. I am not particularly familiar with PC but would assume that it doesn’t get much church funding; its denomination is having its own struggles. I would assume that an institution in that general zone would have some risks. Why pay $30-$40k/year in tuition when a state university is cheaper, more highly regarded and better-known?
I actually do see Furman having some issues. It’s dropped from the 30s to the 50s in the LAC rankings, and its admission percentages have gone way up, making it less selective.
If I lived in SC and wanted to send a child to college close by, I’d have a hard time convincing myself to send my child anywhere in the state but Clemson–even though I went to a private LAC for college and a private university for grad school. The cost/benefit analysis for other schools in the state just doesn’t work out.
Another college we looked a few ago that had a huge endowment was Pomona, $2.1B. Not the the list. I don’t know how many students they have, I am guessing around ,1,500 or about $1.4M per student.
PC and Wofford seem to be doing fine with lots of kids going there. However I get the point that I’d rather spend the cost to go there somewhere else. Personally really like Furman but last President took them down the road of expanding enrollment too quickly and cutting back on some merit aid. Now, as was pointed out, they have become less selective especially for full pay students. My D had their largest merit scholarship and we still had a balance left than was more than full pay for Clemson or USC. She picked full ride USC (top honors college and Clemson not her cup of tea at all even though she was STEM). Wofford more than PC benefits from kids who might not get in more selective schools and still want small LAC experience and can full pay. There are actually other small LACs in SC that I can’t imagine how they attract full pay students.
(Did going to large U in great HC hurt my D? Not based on current acceptances to Ivy and other top grad programs. So wouldn’t say Clemson is only decent school but I know that’s not point of thread )
Other D went to W&L. They seem to have good endowment, loyal alumni, and have been broadening their applicant pool with large Johnson Scholarship program. However, they are also increasing enrollment - not extremely but freshman classes probably had 50 more students when D graduated than when started.
@scmom12 We had the exact same experience with Furman. Loved the school, loved Greenville, hated the merit aid, which was the top one offered (for OOS, non-“named” scholarship), $16K. Unfortunately, that priced Furman out of consideration for us. Just too bad…
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