Good school with weak financials?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s going on at ODU such that it has a D? It stood out to me among the many small, private, and/or religious affiliated schools.

RPI is the one that stood out to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the possibilities for my kid scores a D on this list - https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawhitford/2022/06/09/the-strongest-and-weakest-colleges-in-america---behind-forbes-2022-financial-grades/

I am worried. Would you be?

Yes many good schools are struggling and will face tougher conditions in 2026 when the 18 yr old population starts declining. Covid was also expensive for them. I filtered out schools with a C or lower. Def check the bond rating. I think of it as an investment and want the place to be around in 10 years. I also noticed a lot of schools that give large merit to attract enrollment have lower Financial grades. It is not sustainable.

I agree that good schools are struggling. But I wouldn't trust Forbes' methodology. For instance, because Forbes focuses so much on change, a school that is well-endowed can go down quickly on their grades. Do you really think University of Richmond should be on the list of "Dunces" because its grade went down among the most on their metrics ? That school has a 3.2BILLION endowment for only 4350 students. That is crazy rich for a small school. But they must have recently done something that Forbes thinks is a sign of financial weakness.

I don't really trust Forbes' ranking as a reliable source for this. Moody's actual bond rating, sure.

Yeah, I don't know that Forbes is the most reliable. Another source is from the US Government -- financial responsibility scores at Studentaid.gov. You can download a big list
https://studentaid.gov/data-center/school/composite-scores

"One of many standards, which the Department utilizes to gauge the financial responsibility of an institution, is a composite of three ratios derived from an institution's audited financial statements. The three ratios are a primary reserve ratio, an equity ratio, and a net income ratio. These ratios gauge the fundamental elements of the financial health of an institution, not the educational quality of an institution.

The composite score reflects the overall relative financial health of institutions along a scale from negative 1.0 to positive 3.0. A score greater than or equal to 1.5 indicates the institution is considered financially responsible."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s going on at ODU such that it has a D? It stood out to me among the many small, private, and/or religious affiliated schools.

RPI is the one that stood out to me.

It’s had to do a couple money-grabs recently. It instituted mandatory summer classes in on-campus housing for students who’d already been enrolled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s going on at ODU such that it has a D? It stood out to me among the many small, private, and/or religious affiliated schools.

RPI is the one that stood out to me.

OP here - yes, that's the one. Moody's says A3. That studentaid.gov number (from 2019-20) is a 2.9.

I know about the Summer Arch program, and I'm a little concerned about future initiatives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some schools with small endowments like Bates and Kenyon seem to have good ratings. What’s going on with Conn College? I don’t know enough about these ratings.

Small is relative - yes, smaller than other schools, particularly the most selective LACs - but they still have hundreds of millions in their endowments. Look at the Moody's ratings. Bates, for example, has an A1 rating, student demand is rising and they have rising tuition revenue. Bates also has not overspent on facilities construction (which is also a metric in the Forbes methodology). You can have a smaller endowment and have a strong rating if the school is well managed. We didn't look at Kenyon so I cannot speak to that but I'm guessing it is similar. I do remember reading that they got a huge donation not too long ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s going on at ODU such that it has a D? It stood out to me among the many small, private, and/or religious affiliated schools.

RPI is the one that stood out to me.

OP here - yes, that's the one. Moody's says A3. That studentaid.gov number (from 2019-20) is a 2.9.

I know about the Summer Arch program, and I'm a little concerned about future initiatives.

Yeah, it has a great academic reputation, but apparently not the best financial situation. That would worry me, especially given the cost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some schools with small endowments like Bates and Kenyon seem to have good ratings. What’s going on with Conn College? I don’t know enough about these ratings.

Small is relative - yes, smaller than other schools, particularly the most selective LACs - but they still have hundreds of millions in their endowments. Look at the Moody's ratings. Bates, for example, has an A1 rating, student demand is rising and they have rising tuition revenue. Bates also has not overspent on facilities construction (which is also a metric in the Forbes methodology). You can have a smaller endowment and have a strong rating if the school is well managed. We didn't look at Kenyon so I cannot speak to that but I'm guessing it is similar. I do remember reading that they got a huge donation not too long ago.

Kenyon endowment has grown substantially past few years thanks to a highly successful campaign by the departing President who is going to Natural History. Endowment up to $550 and they also got an anonymous $100 million gift for new dorms.

[Anonymous]

The US gov data is interesting but isn’t the data 2 years old? I just see 2019-2020?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the possibilities for my kid scores a D on this list - https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawhitford/2022/06/09/the-strongest-and-weakest-colleges-in-america---behind-forbes-2022-financial-grades/

I am worried. Would you be?

I agree that good schools are struggling. But I wouldn't trust Forbes' methodology. For instance, because Forbes focuses so much on change, a school that is well-endowed can go down quickly on their grades. Do you really think University of Richmond should be on the list of "Dunces" because its grade went down among the most on their metrics ? That school has a 3.2BILLION endowment for only 4350 students. That is crazy rich for a small school. But they must have recently done something that Forbes thinks is a sign of financial weakness.

I don't really trust Forbes' ranking as a reliable source for this. Moody's actual bond rating, sure.[/quote

The Forbes table with grades of all schools does not focus on change. Just part of the article compares grades from year to year. If you read the methodology, endowment per student is one of the metrics weighted 15%. They must weak the other metrics to offset the strong endowment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised Sarah Lawrence is in so much trouble (at least according to Forbes)

You should not confuse wealthy students with a wealthy school.

Sarah Lawrence has been in financial need for a couple of decades at least. A common saying is that: "Sarah Lawrence needs every tuition dollar that it can get."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of the possibilities for my kid scores a D on this list - https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawhitford/2022/06/09/the-strongest-and-weakest-colleges-in-america---behind-forbes-2022-financial-grades/

I am worried. Would you be?

Yes, I would be worried, but why not name the school & get some specific feedback ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some schools with small endowments like Bates and Kenyon seem to have good ratings. What’s going on with Conn College? I don’t know enough about these ratings.

Small is relative - yes, smaller than other schools, particularly the most selective LACs - but they still have hundreds of millions in their endowments. Look at the Moody's ratings. Bates, for example, has an A1 rating, student demand is rising and they have rising tuition revenue. Bates also has not overspent on facilities construction (which is also a metric in the Forbes methodology). You can have a smaller endowment and have a strong rating if the school is well managed. We didn't look at Kenyon so I cannot speak to that but I'm guessing it is similar. I do remember reading that they got a huge donation not too long ago.

Kenyon endowment has grown substantially past few years thanks to a highly successful campaign by the departing President who is going to Natural History. Endowment up to $550 and they also got an anonymous $100 million gift for new dorms.

How does Oberlin have an endowment of over $1B by comparison? We're interested in Midwestern LACs and curious about this difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s going on at ODU such that it has a D? It stood out to me among the many small, private, and/or religious affiliated schools.

RPI is the one that stood out to me.

OP here - yes, that's the one. Moody's says A3. That studentaid.gov number (from 2019-20) is a 2.9.

I know about the Summer Arch program, and I'm a little concerned about future initiatives.

Yeah, it has a great academic reputation, but apparently not the best financial situation. That would worry me, especially given the cost.

Shitty location

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s going on at ODU such that it has a D? It stood out to me among the many small, private, and/or religious affiliated schools.

RPI is the one that stood out to me.

OP here - yes, that's the one. Moody's says A3. That studentaid.gov number (from 2019-20) is a 2.9.

I know about the Summer Arch program, and I'm a little concerned about future initiatives.

A3 and 2.9 is fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some schools with small endowments like Bates and Kenyon seem to have good ratings. What’s going on with Conn College? I don’t know enough about these ratings.

Small is relative - yes, smaller than other schools, particularly the most selective LACs - but they still have hundreds of millions in their endowments. Look at the Moody's ratings. Bates, for example, has an A1 rating, student demand is rising and they have rising tuition revenue. Bates also has not overspent on facilities construction (which is also a metric in the Forbes methodology). You can have a smaller endowment and have a strong rating if the school is well managed. We didn't look at Kenyon so I cannot speak to that but I'm guessing it is similar. I do remember reading that they got a huge donation not too long ago.

Kenyon endowment has grown substantially past few years thanks to a highly successful campaign by the departing President who is going to Natural History. Endowment up to $550 and they also got an anonymous $100 million gift for new dorms.

How does Oberlin have an endowment of over $1B by comparison? We're interested in Midwestern LACs and curious about this difference.

Oberlin and Denison have very high endowments for midwestern LACs in part because of some very large donors at key periods before market growth. But per capita Kenyon's endowment is pretty sizeable (Kenyon has 1700 students, Oberlin 2800).