In this episode Gary Stocker presents a “Top‑Bottom” analysis of Illinois private colleges using IPEDS data from 2014‑2021. He examines four key performance indicators—full‑time‑equivalent (FTE) enrollment change, 4‑year graduation rates, admissions yield (popularity), and endowment size. For each metric he lists the top‑performing institutions and contrasts them with the bottom‑performing ones, emphasizing eight‑year trends rather than single‑year snapshots. He argues that upward trends signal institutional health, while downward trends indicate risk. Specific concerns are raised about colleges with declining enrollment, graduation rates below a 50 % threshold (coined “coin‑toss colleges”), falling admissions yields, and endowments under $50 million or shrinking dramatically (e.g., Illinois Wesleyan). The episode concludes with guidance for parents, students, and stakeholders to focus on trend comparisons rather than absolute numbers when assessing college viability.
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Hi, it's Gary Stocker with another top and bottom report from College Viability. And today's top bottom report is brought to you by the state of Illinois, and we're going to look at 4 fields that will compare the top and the bottom private colleges of the 40-some-odd colleges in the state of Illinois. And we're going to look at FTE enrollment, admissions yield, 4-year graduation rates, and endowment. And we do it always in order, and I start with the top. We're going to take a look at the top private colleges in Illinois by enrollment change, FTE enrollment change. We always use full-time equivalent enrollment in our analysis because it provides the best comparison. And you can see colleges over the last 8 years, and of course our data is from the National Center for Education Statistics IPEDS database. We're using data from 2014 to 2021, the most recently available data. The 2022 data should be out sometime in December, maybe early January, and of course we'll have the 2024 version of the College Viability App with updated data for you. Then you can look at the colleges that have grown, and it's not just the absolute number. As we look at the 8-year changes in the next to last column on the right-hand side, we also add a percent change so you can kind of equilibrate, if you will, the different sizes. Loyola University with 15,000 students and Oak Point University with a few hundred. You can see the relative percent change. Green, of course, is a good growth rate. Yellow is an okay growth rate. There are no red ones on the top list. But if we were to go to the bottom list, the bottom 10 or so private colleges in the state of Illinois, again, we'll go to the right-hand side and we'll look at the 8-year changes. And we can see all of these colleges, all 10 of these colleges, have had changes. All of them have had substantial changes, and our color indicators are based on the results, are all red. Of course, that indicates not good. But looking at the absolute numbers, and Columbia College of Chicago, which has had some layoffs, which has had some issues, down 2,400 students. Benedictine down 2,000, Roosevelt 1,300, and on and on. It's fair to compare the different sizes because we do use the percent change, but any of these cases, here's the argument that I'm I'm going to make for enrollment, and it's the same argument I'm going to make for the other indicators, the other reports that we look at from IPEDS. If there is an 8-year pattern, an 8-year trend, and it's in an upward direction, that's good. If it's in a downward direction, that's obviously not good. But here's a follow-up to that. Colleges all the time, and I read about this, I write about this, I record about this, say, hey, we're doing okay because our enrollment is up. In the past year? Well, first of all, I hope almost every college has enrollment up from the pandemic period, but that's like saying I'm a really good basketball player because I made a 3-pointer yesterday. It just doesn't hold when you're looking at 8 years of data. And it's good, great, but if it's not good, don't tell me that you can change it tomorrow. It's not going to happen. Let's move on. Let's get the top class, the top colleges, top private colleges in Illinois. I gave you a nice red slash there for some reason. And we're going to look at the 4-year graduation rates. And again, look at some strong, strong colleges. I like to look at the last reported year. You can see the change across all 8 reported years here. But look at 82 out of 100, mid-70s. Our threshold for college 4-year graduation rate is 50% or more. You can see which ones are doing well here. And again, I make the point, we send our students to college, we went to college, for the diploma, not just for the courses, not just for the classes. It's the graduation rate that matters, not the enrollment. And to take that a step further, let's look at the bottom. The bottom 15 or so is what this list looks like of colleges with 4-year graduation rates in Illinois. And you can see all of these are below our threshold of 50% if we go to the year 2021. And we have coined the term "coin toss college" for a college that can't even graduate half of its students after 4 years. And sadly, there are too many colleges who don't even graduate half their students after 6 years. That's not part of this podcast, but that's a fact. And so we can look at all of these. And so, you know, Columbia College, just pick on somebody else, Milliken University, McKendree University, both Central Illinois colleges, for every 100 students that start started there in 2017, '18, 4 years ago, only 40-some-odd graduated. What are they doing? What kind of students are they bringing in? What kind of systems and processes do they have in place when they can't even graduate half their students after 4 years? That's sad. Let's move on. And there's one, this is something I call the popularity indicator. IPEDS calls it the admission yield. It's simply a reflection of the number of students who, once accepted by a college, actually show up, pay tuition, and take classes. And so what we're looking for here is the trend. You can see the actual values for 2014, and when colleges don't report data for a couple years, that concerns me, but that's a story for another day. You can look at the individual data points here, but here's the trend that we're looking at. So we're looking at the 8-year change in admissions yield. So it's down for every one of these bottom-feeding colleges in terms of popularity. Again, I make the case this is an 8-year trend. It suggests that students, for whatever reason, and I'm not about to speculate on those reasons, are choosing other colleges once they're accepted by any of these colleges you see, Wheaton and North Park and Monmouth and Augustana and on and on the list goes. And I'm going to go back up to the top one because I skipped over the top of it. And so these are the top admissions yield colleges in the last 8 years in Illinois. Now, I report the data as it is. I pull it right out of the IPEDS database. And you know, from 13% to 38%, a 25-point jump, maybe. I do on regular occasion have concerns that some of these organizations don't have the skill sets to actually report this data. But we'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say they're doing something to get more students to accept their enrollment offers. But you can see some do well. So out of every, we'll use Aurora University, for every 100 offers they put out, 31 students show up. And the numbers go quite a range, but again, these are the top. So by comparison, I can say St. Xavier at 11%, or a 2% change over the last 8 years, is better than a college like Lake Forest at the bottom of this list, who has lost 7 percentage points in terms of popularity in the last 8 reported years. And then let's finally look at the endowment. And again, we start with the top, and the top one shows some very, very, very strong private regional colleges in Illinois with exceptional endowments. And the threshold we use as a bare minimum here at College Viability is $50 million. And they all exceed that. I would note with some concern the 6-year change for Illinois Wesleyan University. They have had some financial issues, as reported in the media, and to be down $33 million in an endowment that's supposed to be there for forever to make sure that that organization, that university, lasts into perpetuity— I'm concerned that Illinois Wesleyan University is spending down their endowment to do things like keep the lights on, make payroll, those kind of things. I don't know that for a fact, but I know that's an awfully big number, and you typically only see that in colleges about to close the doors. I don't think that's the case for Wesleyan, but certainly something to look out for and to ask them about. Why is your endowment down $33 million from 2014 to 2021? And finally, let's take a look at the endowment assets, the bottom ones. And again, look at the 2021 data for 10 colleges in Illinois, and we can see that none of them even come close to our bare minimum of $50 million. We can see the changes for both Judson and Quincy. Because they have such low endowments, almost certainly they're using some portion of that endowment to keep the lights on, to meet payroll in some form or fashion. That's not good. And you can see, while there has been some growth, and that's always a good thing in terms of endowment, the actual value is the indicator you really want to look at. If an organization like Blackburn College has only raised $26 million in the history of its existence, which is going to be decades and decades, if not centuries, you've got to wonder if they have the capacity to ever do it. And if they run into financial trouble, and I know Blackburn has issues like most private colleges, and they say, well, we're gonna raise $20 million. Well, if they've only raised $26 million over the life of the organization, there is no way they're gonna raise $20 million in a short period of time in the presence of financial distress. So we'll wrap up this edition of Top Bottom, brought to you by the state of Illinois and its private colleges, and we'll continue to do this and just provide guidance. And for parents, students, and others looking at this, it's the comparison that matters. It's not the absolute value, it's the trend that matters. Look at one, compare it to another, take it from there. There are strong colleges, but there are many, many, many, too many that are financially weak, and you need to know that. This is Gary Stocker. So long until next time.
