In this 2021 video, presenter Gary Stocker evaluates Adrian College’s financial and academic health by benchmarking it against five comparable private Michigan institutions over the 2014‑2019 reporting period. He first explains his comparative approach—selecting similarly sized, in‑state peers and using color‑coded (green/yellow/red) indicators. He then walks through five key metrics: (1) enrollment, which rose about 156 students (≈10%) and earned a yellow rating; (2) tuition and fees revenue, which increased modestly (≈$1 M) and also received a yellow rating; (3) operating expenses, which grew by roughly $7 M, outpacing revenue growth; (4) endowment, which sits at $34 M—below Stocker’s preferred $50 M minimum but not the lowest among peers; and (5) graduation rate, which is 46% for the 2018‑19 cohort, far below the 70% benchmark and considerably lower than top peers like Kalamazoo College (86%). Stocker highlights that while Adrian performs averagely on enrollment and tuition revenue, its expense growth, modest endowment, and low graduation rate raise concerns about long‑term viability. He concludes that comparative analysis across these dimensions is the most reliable way to assess private college health.
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MUSIC. Let's take a look at Adrian College, and the approach that we always use is we compare a single college with a set of colleges that are about the same size and almost always in the same state. And the first screen that we look at is Adrian College and its comparison with 5 other colleges. You can see the colleges listed over here on the left. And what we're looking at is the enrollment is up about 100 and not quite 160 students over 6 years. And again, the reporting period is from 2014 to 2019. Colleges are traditionally slow in getting their data out, both through their own resources and through the government. But nonetheless, we get a chance to compare colleges over the same period of time, and we can see both good trends and not so good trends. And we can see the enrollment is up, the tuition fees collected is up a little bit but not a lot, you know, probably a yellow rating in my book. The graduation rate I'll show here in a minute. We always focus on the expenses versus the revenues, and we can see expenses have gone up over $7 million. For Adrian, and revenues up just a little over $1.3 million. In this last column, we can see the change in the endowment for Adrian College, and it's from, again, that 2014 to 2019 time period, and it's gone up a little bit. We can compare it to the other colleges. We can see that Albion has taken a substantial decrease in their endowment, but both Kalamazoo and Northwood have shown more growth in their endowment than has Adrian. And I'll show you the actual numbers here in a second. Let's move on and look at the actual enrollment for the 6-year period. And again, we can see it's gone up from 1,600 to 1,700 and change. So the 156 that we saw earlier, up about 10%. And you can see the green, yellow, red indicators that I have programmed into this. It just is a comparison of the set of colleges, 6 Michigan colleges here. And how they compare in this particular category to one another. And we can see that Kettering University has had the most enrollment growth, and we can see that right next door. So not bad for Adrian. I would give that kind of a yellow color scheme. Not exceptional, but not bad by any stretch. Let's look at tuition and fees. So we're looking at, for Adrian College, $22 million and change in 2013-14, up to $23 million and change, up just a little bit. Average at best, especially in this group that it's been compared to. You can see its comparison to other colleges, and again, Kettering has done a fine job of driving additional tuition and fees revenue from their students over this 6-year period. We'll look at the endowment rate. This is the actual endowment number, and again, Adrian at $34 million, that's a little low. If you've seen these other videos, you'll see, you'll hear that I like to see this number at $50 million and above as a minimum. Many in the higher education industry look at that kind of number as well. So substantively below that threshold. And again, we're comparing Adrian to other colleges. You can see how it compares in terms of endowment, in terms of assets and resources available outside of normal operating revenues. But it's also not the worst. We can see Siena Heights with a really, really, really low endowment. And finally, let's look at graduation rates. And I want to look at the graduation rate for the last reported year. In this case, it's 2018-2019. By comparison, and in the absolute, not really a good number for Adrian College. At 46%, that simply means that for every 46 undergraduate students that started at Adrian in 2014, Only 46 have graduated from Adrian College in 2019. Some could have transferred and graduated elsewhere. A few of those could graduate 7 or 8 years afterwards. The threshold, again, that I use and many use is 70%. If it's not 70%, you have to wonder if a college or university, and in our case, a private college or university, has the systems and processes in place to graduate students. We can look at competitors here. Kalamazoo College at 86%, a really, really strong number. And as we wrap up this review of Adrian College in Michigan, let me remind you the focus here is on comparisons. This episode compared Adrian to 5 other private Michigan colleges. It's the comparison that's important. You look at the enrollment trends, you look at tuition revenue, you look at endowment, You look at graduation rates and you compare those items just like you compare faculty and campuses and degrees and majors. That's the true way, the best way to get a good evaluation of a private college.
