Here are a couple of posts that talk about some tools that I would use to investigate a school’s sustainability. No one measure by itself would be a vetoing factor. But the more flags that are raised, the more concerned I would likely to be.
I worry less about the ranking and more about the finances. Forbes also has a financial health grading system for private colleges which is one way to get a quick look: The Strongest And Weakest Colleges In America — Behind Forbes 2022 Financial Grades . And the grades are not correlated with USNWR ranks. For instance, Fisk and Hampden-Sydney both have an A- financial health grade, while U. of Richmond and Santa Clara have a B. Additionally, I’d try and pull multiple years’ worth of data to see in which direction the school is trending.
In the thread about closing schools (Rest in Peace: College Closings ), I think some of the general thoughts have been to take a close look at the finances of schools with an endowment of less than $100 million (not to necessarily eliminate them, but to take a close look).
Those would be two ways that I’d start to get a better sense of the institution’s future, at least for the amount of time that my kid would be in school.
Also, Jeff Selingo’s li…
And post #867 in this thread discusses a cool tool that @LionsTigersAndBears shared with the community.
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