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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My observations/thoughts as I look though the list.

1. One or two big checks can really turn propel a school upward. For example, both McPherson in KS and Catawba in NC now have A grades after a donor changed their fates. McPherson is now ranked above Wake, Dartmouth, and Grinnell. Catawba is right between MIT and Emory.

2. Since the USNWR list is so closely aligned with $, I wonder if schools like McPherson or Catawba will start to appear on USNWR national rankings.

3. Since there's some unpredictability in where future existentially-large gifts will go (who'd have expected McPherson to get a billion dollars?), it makes predicting the future a little hard.

4. The religious schools are doing quite well. A number of the schools high on the list are *extremely* religious, and notably in a way that intersects with politics. For example, a fair number appear on the "worst" list for LGBTQ-friendliness as ranked by Campus Pride.

5. It would be interesting to compare some of these religio-political schools to previous Forbes rankings to get a sense of whether the culture wars/political polarization are infusing new levels of cash into these very religious schools.

6. Despite the gleeful hand-wringing from some DCUMers, nearly all of the top SLACs are doing great. Looks like 65 or so (at least?) of the USNWR national LACs have range from B to A+, and a bunch of regional ones are in that range too.

7. There was a recent post about hidden gems, and Trinity University in TX came up a bunch. This school, which almost never gets talked about here, is graded A, which seems to reinforce this.

8. Nice to see some HBCUs doing really well - Johnson C. Smith has an A+, Tougaloo has an A.

9. [b]There are at least three regional women's schools that are doing very well. Stephens College in MO, Hollins in VA, and St. Mary's of Indiana. That seems potentially interesting? [/b]

10. A number on this list that are extremely niche. For example, Maharisi University in Iowa (B) is the school associated with transcendental meditation and ayurvedic medicine. I mean, okay.

11. I wish there were a way to model where schools would appear if the market had done slightly differently in those years. 
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Hollins received $75mm from an anonymous alumna. The largest gift ever received by a women’s college.[/quote]

Oh, good for them! I guess I (PP) was wondering if there might be new interest in supporting some of these regional women's schools, especially as an increasing number of similar schools seem to face concerning financial realities. I'm hoping more people step up to support some of the very good schools who don't already have billion-dollar+ endowments. If I had a few billion, I'd slip some $$ to a lot of these lesser-known schools who do great work with good-but-not-superstar kids. An educational market with a few haves and many precarious have-nots won't serve anyone well. [/quote]

Re Women's schools, Wells College could have used an anonymous donor!

https://hechingerreport.org/the-story-of-how-one-college-abruptly-closed-but-kept-everyone-in-the-dark/
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