https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-19/dc-area-college-drains-one-third-of-endowment-in-bid-to-lure-students?embedded-checkout=true
The article says they pulled $16.5 million from their endowment in the 2023 fiscal year (endowment is now down to $32 million from $49 million). Money was spent on new flooring, paint, windows and furniture to try and convince more students to enroll and to refresh 3 floors of the Ballston building that they lease to an outside company. Their VP Finance is quoted as saying “an endowment just sits there, what’s the point?”.
Full time undergraduate enrollment has dropped 370 students (down to about 1,700) since the recent President took over in 2018.
They phased out several liberal arts majors.
There was a May call with investors in their $111 million of municipal bond debt after the school disclosed it was drawing down its endowment. The debt traded in July for the first time since 2015 at roughly $.80 on the dollar, down more than $.20 since its last trade. Moody’s and S&P downgraded the school’s credit rating deeper into junk.
Doesn’t look promising for this school and one should question the fiscal management of this president and VP Finance.
Marymount Manhattan just merged with Northeastern and Marymount California closed in 2022 and the property was bought by UCLA. Seems like this one is headed in the same direction. Sad.