In this solo YouTube presentation, Gary Stocker, founder of College Viability, creates a data‑driven puzzle to illustrate the financial fragility of private colleges. Using anonymized IPEDS data (2015‑2022) from the 2024 Private College Viability App, he displays seven private‑college reports—each labeled only by a number (1‑7). One of these colleges is Notre Dame College in Ohio, which publicly announced its closure on February 29, 2024. Stocker walks viewers through a series of key performance indicators for each college: full‑time‑equivalent (FTE) enrollment trends, 4‑year graduation rates, admissions yield, percent admitted, unfunded institutional grants (merit‑based tuition discounts), endowment assets, and financial ratios such as total revenue vs. expenses and total assets over liabilities (current ratio). He highlights thresholds he uses (e.g., 50 % 4‑year graduation rate, $50 million endowment minimum, average current ratio of 9) and points out patterns—declining enrollment, low graduation rates, decreasing yields, varying grant strategies, and weak balance‑sheet metrics—that may signal closure risk. After reviewing the data, he invites the audience to pause the video, analyze the seven reports, and vote via a LinkedIn survey on which numbered college they believe is Notre Dame. He promises to reveal the correct answer on March 7, 2024, and to comment on what the exercise demonstrates about private‑college viability.
Chapters
This is Gary Stocker. I'm the founder of College Viability. With the March 1st closure announcement of Notre Dame College in Ohio, I created a data comparison exercise to demonstrate the fragility of private colleges that have not closed. If you decide to accept this mission impossible assignment, I'm going to show you 7 College Viability App reports from 7 private colleges. One of the 7 is Notre Dame College. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to look at the data and determine which of the IPEDS report results belongs to Notre Dame College. As I will share at the end of the presentation, I will announce next week which of the Ananaimai Seven Colleges is Notre Dame College. Which of these private colleges announced their closure on February 29, 2024? It's Notre Dame College in Ohio. The data you're about to see is from the National Center for Education Statistics and its IPEDS database. The years are 2015 through 2022, the last reported data available. Each report is from the 2024 Private College Viability App for executive analysis. You want to note that as you look at the data, I've added a small constant multiplication factor to disguise the results, the actual results of some of the IPEDS data reports. So we know the date that Notre Dame College announced it was closing, and I'm going to show you anonymized financial enrollment and outcome data, 7 reports, for Notre Dame College and 6 other private colleges. One and only one of the 7 colleges on the list is Notre Dame College in Ohio. Can you decide which one is Notre Dame? Let's take a quick look at the data, and of course you'll want to pause the YouTube video to look at it more closely. But now we're looking at the FTE enrollment data from 2015 to 2022. And you can see on the right-hand side the 8-year changes, you know, pretty consistent. Some have had larger drops than others, but they've all dropped. And you can see the percent change on the far right-hand side. Let's take a look at the 4-year graduation rate. And if you follow a lot of my media, you'll note that I take great challenge in noting how many colleges don't do well with 4-year graduation rates. And this group of 7 colleges, one of which is Notre Dame College, does not do well. I have a standard, a lower, I have a standard threshold of 50% at 4 years, and you can see none of these make it. You can look at the data on your own by pausing the YouTube video. The admissions yield, of course, that determines the percentage of students that accept a college's offer of admissions. You can see the data for the 7 colleges. You can see how they're anonymized there on the left, and you can see the 8-year changes down for all but one. Actually, all is down for all but 2. And the one, college number 2, with a 16% increase in admissions yield, my best bet is they've really increased their tuition discount rates and their unfunded institutional grants. The one at 3%, tough to tell. But the others have a decreased admissions yield. Take a look at those. The percent admitted, reasonably consistent for the 7 colleges, 4, 5, and 6. A little on the high side. Um, College 7 is a little on the low side at 45%, but you know, one of those 7 is Notre Dame College. The other 7 have not announced any intention to close anytime soon. And then we look at that unfunded institutional grants, and of course these are the merit scholarships, the merit aid, the most unfunded scholarships, you know, the traditional presidential scholarship, unfunded discounts. And you can see on the right-hand side the change, and we're kind of all over the board there. You can see Colleges 1, 2, and 7, pretty flat over the 8 years. You can see College 4 has actually brought theirs down over the course of 8 years. Colleges 3, 5, and 6 have appreciably increased the unfunded grants that they offer. It's an attempt to get more students in the door. They're essentially trying to buy students. And then the endowment assets at the end of the fiscal year. And again, here at College Viability, we have a minimum endowment threshold of $50 million. None of these 7 colleges meet it, but you can look at the data and see if that helps formulate which of these 7 colleges is Notre Dame College. And then finally, there's a ratio page, and all this is from the 2024 Private College Viability App, the executive analysis version. I'll share also that there's a version for faculty and staff, and we also have a version for students and their families. You can see I've highlighted 2 areas from the CAT. The total revenue and expenses, if it's above 100%, that means of course the revenue is a little bit higher than expenses. College 1 seems to have a lot of issues. College 6, not far behind. Colleges 5 and 7 have had a positive experience in terms of 2022 revenue expenses. And then the total assets over liabilities, if you're a finance person or accountant, you know that as the current ratio, C-U-R-R-E-N-T. The higher the number, the better. I did a look at all of the almost 1,300 private colleges, and an average— the average current ratio, total assets over liabilities, was 9. You can see all of these are below that except for College Six. I gotta think they just didn't know what they were doing. So there's the data. So what does that mean for the other 6 private colleges? Only one of those 7 you just looked at announced closure. That was Notre Dame. The others are Gosh, in the same ballpark on lots of these measures. So pause the YouTube video as appropriate, look at the 7 reports, determine which one you think— college 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7— which one you think is Notre Dame. Then go back to the LinkedIn post and you'll see a survey that I posted there. Cast your vote. I will post only the college number— 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7— that is Notre Dame College at 11 AM Central on March 7th. I'll also have some commentary on what this exercise demonstrates. So take a look, have some fun with that. My name, of course, is Gary Stocker with College Viability, and I'll look forward to the surveys that you do, and we'll see what percentage of folks can, can determine which of those 7 is indeed Notre Dame College.
