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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Occidental, University of Southern California, Georgetown and many of the lesser known schools mentioned earlier in the thread.  [/quote]

USC and Georgetown are doing fine.[/quote]

You are correct. But out of curiosity, I did a deep dive on Georgetown and why Forbes gave it such a low grade relative to its peers. Georgetown (and USC) got a B whereas most other top schools received A or A plus. Someone pointed out the strong Moody's rating for Georgetown, but Forbes looks at different things to measure financial health beyond ability to pay back loans. Here's what AI said:

Forbes' B grade reflects a fundamentally different set of concerns, and they're real:

Low endowment per student. This is the core issue. Georgetown's endowment is approximately $3 billion — substantial in absolute terms, but when divided across its large student body and operating budget, the endowment per student figure is modest compared to its peer institutions. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Notre Dame have endowments that dwarf Georgetown's on a per-student basis. Forbes weights endowment per student heavily because it measures how much of a financial cushion exists per person the institution is serving. Georgetown comes up short.

High tuition dependence. Forbes penalizes schools that rely heavily on tuition as a percentage of core revenues. Georgetown is significantly tuition-dependent — a large share of its operating budget comes from what students and families pay. This is a structural vulnerability: if enrollment dips, if a competitor disrupts pricing, or if demographic shifts reduce the applicant pool, tuition-heavy institutions feel it faster and harder. Endowment-rich schools can absorb shocks; Georgetown has less of that cushion.

Aid discounting. Georgetown has historically offered significant financial aid, which Forbes views through a nuanced lens. Heavy aid discounting can signal that a school needs to buy enrollment rather than attracting it purely on merit and demand. Forbes' methodology essentially asks: are students choosing you because you're the best option, or because you're making it financially competitive? Georgetown's aid spend relative to its endowment raises flags here.

Lower admissions yield than peers. Georgetown's yield rate — the percentage of admitted students who enroll — is lower than many schools ranked near or below it. This matters to Forbes because yield is a proxy for how much students want to be there relative to their alternatives. A school with a 70% yield has students who overwhelmingly chose it; a school with a 35–40% yield is losing admitted students to other options regularly. Georgetown loses meaningful numbers of admits to Harvard, Yale, Penn, and Georgetown's own law school feeder competition.

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