Which top colleges have a significant budget deficit? Which ones are red flags?

[Anonymous]

And Columbia, $40 million deficit last Fall:

https://columbiachronicle.com/campus/breaking-columbias-budget-deficit-grows-to-40-million-but-state-of-the-college-offers-few-specifics/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And Columbia, $40 million deficit last Fall:

https://columbiachronicle.com/campus/breaking-columbias-budget-deficit-grows-to-40-million-but-state-of-the-college-offers-few-specifics/

Columbia is fine and isn't going anywhere. This is not some 2,000 student SLAC in the northeast that accepts 90% of its applicants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And Columbia, $40 million deficit last Fall:

https://columbiachronicle.com/campus/breaking-columbias-budget-deficit-grows-to-40-million-but-state-of-the-college-offers-few-specifics/

Columbia hater cannot stop posting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And Columbia, $40 million deficit last Fall:

https://columbiachronicle.com/campus/breaking-columbias-budget-deficit-grows-to-40-million-but-state-of-the-college-offers-few-specifics/

A cunning troller and a couple dumb takers ...

Columbia College Chicago, not to be confused with Columbia University in New York

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And Columbia, $40 million deficit last Fall:

https://columbiachronicle.com/campus/breaking-columbias-budget-deficit-grows-to-40-million-but-state-of-the-college-offers-few-specifics/

Columbia is fine and isn't going anywhere. This is not some 2,000 student SLAC in the northeast that accepts 90% of its applicants.

Troll tosses a bait and…..fish on!

[Anonymous]

Some college financial health resources are listed in this earlier thread:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1304524.page#31262289

[Anonymous]

Occidental College. $30M loss during covid. More recently, a surprise 15% loss in enrollment, which the school had to accommodate by cutting staff salaries, stopping any new hires, putting a marketing expert in charge of admissions, etc. That latter person decided to give a $15K "scholarship" to anyone who would accept ED or EA, but it's really just desperation. Google Occidental College 15% enrollment failure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Occidental College. $30M loss during covid. More recently, a surprise 15% loss in enrollment, which the school had to accommodate by cutting staff salaries, stopping any new hires, putting a marketing expert in charge of admissions, etc. That latter person decided to give a $15K "scholarship" to anyone who would accept ED or EA, but it's really just desperation. Google Occidental College 15% enrollment failure.

They’ll bounce back. There’s a pretty good market for urban lacs and they just need to change strategy. It seems dramatic and it’s because LACs often run a lot more based off of enrollment. There’s no major hospital to balance out the numbers. They need to find a strategy to poach the kind of student who’d go to the Claremont Colleges or
Whitman or Reed. It also needs to look at Peers like Macalester. If middle of nowhere Colby can find students, so can Occidental.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And Columbia, $40 million deficit last Fall:

https://columbiachronicle.com/campus/breaking-columbias-budget-deficit-grows-to-40-million-but-state-of-the-college-offers-few-specifics/

Columbia is fine and isn't going anywhere. This is not some 2,000 student SLAC in the northeast that accepts 90% of its applicants.

No one thinks these large, old schools are "going anywhere" but these deficits do impact the student experience in the short-term. Cutting staff and services, reducing number of adviser, deferring maintenance on classrooms/dorms, etc. Hiring freezes mean new professors are not hired. They won't "go anywhere" but it matters.

[Anonymous]

UChicago just got $100 mil in gifts so far this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did a tiny school like Middlebury run up such a large deficit?

A $4.49 million budget deficit against an overall budget of $344 million isn't that significant (1.3% of overall budget). Reasons mentioned are rising healthcare costs, staff and faculty pay increases, and debt servicing.

As far as I can tell, Middlebury had a $14.1 deficit in FY 2025 and has a projected budget deficit of $8.6 million for FY 2026, along with about 15 years of perennial deficits prior to these most recent years.

https://www.middlebury.edu/stories/archive/2025/05/board-trustees-approves-fiscal-year-2026-budget-tenure

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did a tiny school like Middlebury run up such a large deficit?

A $4.49 million budget deficit against an overall budget of $344 million isn't that significant (1.3% of overall budget). Reasons mentioned are rising healthcare costs, staff and faculty pay increases, and debt servicing.

As far as I can tell, Middlebury had a $14.1 deficit in FY 2025 and has a projected budget deficit of $8.6 million for FY 2026, along with about 15 years of perennial deficits prior to these most recent years.

https://www.middlebury.edu/stories/archive/2025/05/board-trustees-approves-fiscal-year-2026-budget-tenure

And what is its acceptance rate and yield? It can easily raise tuition to cover this and not lose any applicants. Plus it has a decent endowment. I'm not concerned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did a tiny school like Middlebury run up such a large deficit?

A $4.49 million budget deficit against an overall budget of $344 million isn't that significant (1.3% of overall budget). Reasons mentioned are rising healthcare costs, staff and faculty pay increases, and debt servicing.

As far as I can tell, Middlebury had a $14.1 deficit in FY 2025 and has a projected budget deficit of $8.6 million for FY 2026, along with about 15 years of perennial deficits prior to these most recent years.

https://www.middlebury.edu/stories/archive/2025/05/board-trustees-approves-fiscal-year-2026-budget-tenure

You are just a glutton for punishment. Why do you post this stuff when you know that it is wrong?

Why post something a year old when you know that there was a fall update with a lower number and then the Feb update with the current $4.49M number?

Let me remind you:

Middlebury has a larger endowment than Colby.

Middlebury has less debt than Colby.

Middlebury draws from their endowment at a lower rate than Colby draws from theirs and could close their deficit and go to a surplus simply by raising their draw rate to equal Colby's.

Middlebury has raised their fees at below average rates among the NESCAC schools for many years.

Middlebury has fixed the root causes of their deficit while Colby has run a deficit for the last three years running.

Neither school has any significant financial issues but Middlebury is without question in stronger financial shape.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did a tiny school like Middlebury run up such a large deficit?

A $4.49 million budget deficit against an overall budget of $344 million isn't that significant (1.3% of overall budget). Reasons mentioned are rising healthcare costs, staff and faculty pay increases, and debt servicing.

As far as I can tell, Middlebury had a $14.1 deficit in FY 2025 and has a projected budget deficit of $8.6 million for FY 2026, along with about 15 years of perennial deficits prior to these most recent years.

https://www.middlebury.edu/stories/archive/2025/05/board-trustees-approves-fiscal-year-2026-budget-tenure

You are just a glutton for punishment. Why do you post this stuff when you know that it is wrong?

Why post something a year old when you know that there was a fall update with a lower number and then the Feb update with the current $4.49M number?

Let me remind you:

Middlebury has a larger endowment than Colby.

Middlebury has less debt than Colby.

Middlebury draws from their endowment at a lower rate than Colby draws from theirs and could close their deficit and go to a surplus simply by raising their draw rate to equal Colby's.

Middlebury has raised their fees at below average rates among the NESCAC schools for many years.

Middlebury has fixed the root causes of their deficit while Colby has run a deficit for the last three years running.

Neither school has any significant financial issues but Middlebury is without question in stronger financial shape.

My research was incomplete. I apologize to those reading through. However, your comments, which appear to be reasonable and accurate with respect to Middlebury itself, seem to have conflated my post with those of one or more other people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Only 2 Catholic schools Notre Dame and Holy Cross. No surpise both are very well off but where is Bowdoin, Colgate, and the vast majority of NESCAC. Princeton must be an omission.

Notre Dame is in a hiring freeze and has made cuts in day to day operating expenses. This is driven by the new endowment tax coupled with the expansion of need blind admissions to international students, and higher aid expense related to FGLI focus.