Will my college close? Side by Side financial health comparison of Private Missouri Colleges

Hi, this is Gary Stocker. Are you concerned that the private college you are considering may close? Or it may just struggle to provide a quality education? During this video, I'll share with you how to quickly and easily compare the financial health of private colleges. This episode includes a focus on Fontbonne University, William Woods University, and Webster University, all of them in Missouri. After I step you through the comparisons of enrollment and graduation rates, revenues and expenses, you'll be more comfortable and confident in your final college decision. If you have another set of private colleges you would like compared on this video, drop me a note in the comments section below. I'll add them to future video comparisons. Students like you deserve a quality college education. I want to help you make the best possible decision that includes financial factors about colleges that are not normally considered. Today, that means checking to compare the financial health of private colleges you are considering. I have made the comparison simple and easy to understand. Let's get started. There are two comparison tools that I've created. The first is called REGRET. I'll explain what that means in a minute. The first is called REGRET. It will help you easily and quickly compare the financial health, enrollment trends, and graduation rates of a set of private colleges. The second tool you'll see on this video is something called AIIS. Again, I'll explain it to you in a couple of minutes. It allows you to compare how colleges invest in instruction and academic support services. I'll show you what that looks like in a minute. Since this video probably won't have the exact set of private colleges you are considering, make sure to get updates on the financial health of a different set by clicking on subscribe down below, and you'll be advised of all of the videos I do comparing different sets of 3 private colleges. We'll be doing these college financial health comparisons on a regular basis My current focus, and the states you'll see in the coming weeks and months, are on 10 states, and they are considered higher-risk states for colleges in trouble, colleges that may close, and those states are New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri. I will post comparisons of 3 private colleges in each of those states in the videos that I post to this channel. So let's define the REGRET model. You can see I've defined each of the terms on the left-hand side. REGRET stands for, R stands for total revenue change over 6 years, E stands for the enrollment, the full-time student enrollment change over 6 years, the graduation rate change over 6 years, the revenue collected from tuition and its change over 6 years, the total expenses over 6 years, and the actual endowment amount for the last year reported, in this case 2018. We use a red, yellow, green system to make it easier for you to compare the sets of 3 colleges in these videos. The red stands for the worst number. In a row. For example, we can see the graduation rate here in this row, that Fontbonne at 52% over 6 years, William Woods at 54%, they were the second position, that's yellow, and that Webster had the comparatively best graduation rate of these 3 colleges at 59%, it's green. So we look at the comparisons for each of the rows all the way across the regression model. And then we add the total number of each color to get our financial college viability score. And so you can see in the case of Fontbonne University, there are 2 reds, 4 yellows, and 0 greens. So their college financial viability score is 240. William Woods has 1 red, 2 yellows, and 3 greens. Their college financial viability score By comparison, by comparison only, is 123. Webster University has 3 greens, 0 yellows, and 3 reds. And again, this is in comparison to these other 2 colleges. If we had a different college in this set from Missouri or Illinois or any other state, it could conceivably and probably would change these numbers. So that's how we use the regret model. Let's just briefly look at 3 of the rows of data in the regret model. We want to look at enrollment, tuition revenue, and total endowment for each of the 3 colleges. So when we look at enrollment, we can see that for these 3 universities, that William Woods grew their enrollment about 200 students over the course of 6 years, that's the green color. Fontbonne lost not quite 500 students over that same period. And Webster University lost in excess of 3,800 students over the 6-year period. Does that say that Webster University is in bad shape? No, because there are some reasons behind it. They had a strong international business. A lot of those students have no longer enrolled at Webster University for whatever reason, but it allows us to compare the three colleges. Let's look at tuition revenue. And we can see that essentially William Woods was flat. They lost a couple hundred thousand dollars over the six years from 2013 to 2018. Faucon lost about $7 million from 2013 to 2018. Their revenue for tuition was down about $7 million. And Webster, as you might expect, was down $42 million. Comparing the 3 colleges is what's important. I will say this over and over again. There is no absolute here, but the comparisons provide more information for which to make those college decisions. And lastly, let's look at the total endowment. In the lowest category, the total in 2018, which was the last year I provided this data, was almost $15 million for Fontbonne, $20 million for William Woods, and about $137 million for Webster University. And again, it's a comparison. Generally, higher education professionals will tell you the minimum number for that endowment is somewhere in the vicinity of $50 million, 5-0 million dollars. So we can see that 2 of the 3 colleges don't meet that generally accepted threshold, while Webster shows a strong endowment. What's the value of that? The endowment provides an organization, conceivably, with resources to use when they have other financial issues. There's a lot more detail to it than that, but that's essentially what an endowment is for. So again, we can look at each of these rows and compare each of the 3 colleges to help us make a more informed decision on the financial health, the potential viability of each of these colleges. Next, we'll move on to the ACE model. So let's take a look at the ACE model. A-I-I-S, we pronounce it ACE. You can see on the left-hand side that the first A stands for academic support, and I've indicated which number is better. A higher number is better. The first I stands for institutional support. A lower number is better. I'll go over that more in a minute. The second I is for instruction support, and the S is for student services support. Again, the ACE model provides you with a side-by-side comparison of how colleges have chosen to invest many of their expenses in support of the academic model. Let's go through the details. For academic support, the higher the number is better. So we can see that Fontbonne, over the last 6 years, the 6 years reported here, 2013 to 2018, has invested about $500 more per student. Webster at $313, and William Woods at only $105 per student more compared to the other two. The institutional support, again, this is lower. The lower the number, the better. Institutional support is in large part the support for administrative services and salaries, those kind of things. So the lowest number on here is the best number. William Woods has lowered their institutional support costs over the last 6 years by over $200. Fontbonne is up about $1,500 over 6 years. Webster is up about $2,100 and change over 6 years. Again, the lower the number, the better. So green, yellow, red. The instruction support, consider that academic salaries, faculty salaries. The higher the number, the better. So we can see Webster has increased their support per student over $1,700 over the 6 years. William Woods has decreased their investment in instructional resources almost $700 over these 6 years. And Fontbonne has been able to increase theirs about $800 over 6 years per student. Student services support, again, the higher the number the better. Give Fontbonne credit, they're up over $1,200 over 6 years. Again, this is per student. Webster's up not quite $600, and William Woods is up over, just a little over $160 per student. Again, the same comparison mechanism comes into play. We count the number of reds, yellows, and greens. So there's 0 reds, 2 yellows, and 2 greens for Fontbonne, so their score is 022. William Woods has 3 reds, no yellows, and a green. And Webster has 1 red, 2 yellows, and 1 green for a score of 121. So how do we use these two models, the regret model and the ACE model? What I have done, and you'll see on the screen, is I've brought down the scores for both the financial college viability score for each of the three colleges, and again, the red, yellow, green model holds. And then I've done the same thing for the academic score, and again, red is the worst number, yellow is the intermediate or second place number, and green is the best number. I simply brought the scores down, and then in this case, Fontbonne has the lowest number at 262, so I gave them a green, green credit, green score on this one. And it just so happens that both William Woods and Webster have the same score, so I just left both of those at yellow. Individually, you would look at these colleges and the financial viability, where there's clear differentiation, and on the academic score, where there's clear differentiation, and decide from your own perspective which of these is more important. The enrollment trends, the finances, the expenses, the revenues, the endowment on the financial side, or the way a college over the 6 years reported, 2013 to 2018, has chosen to invest its resources. Those decisions are up to you. We simply provide the comparisons in the College Viability Model. So I've done a college comparison for you. Financial health, academic focus, those kind of things. I have also created something called the College Viability App so you can do your own comparison of private colleges' financial health. There is a link to the free version in the description down below, so feel free to take a look at that. And then right below that, there is also a link to a brief tutorial on the College Viability App. Higher education experts from across the country are predicting college closures in the coming months and years. I created the College Viability App to make it easy for you to compare private colleges you may be considering. Don't make a college decision without checking on its financial health. It's only fair. Colleges check on your financial health with the FAFSA. You should check on their financial health with the College Viability App. We have more than 1,300 private colleges you can compare. I have shared with you comparisons of the financial health and academic focus of some Missouri private colleges. So now tell me about the biggest concern you have about selecting a college. Is it enrollment numbers? Is it tuition cost? Is it the majors offered? Is it the financial health and viability of the college? Or something else? Because now you know how to compare the financial health of private colleges you can feel more comfortable with whatever final decision you might make. Because now you know how to compare the financial health of private colleges, you can feel more comfortable with whatever final decision you might make. Finally, there are consequences if you change colleges for whatever reason. As a bonus, I have created a worksheet that you can download to estimate how much it will cost you to change colleges. The link is in the description section down below. Also, if you found this video helpful in providing you with more information on the private colleges you are considering, please click on the like button below. Thanks, we'll see you next time.