Ithaca College Financial Health and Viability
Gary Stocker on Ithaca College's situation
We are pleased to be cross-posting research from Gary Stocker of College Viability on Ithaca College, in New York state. An Inside Higher Ed piece from February provides a status update on the college’s restructuring plans and reaction from faculty, students and others. Ithaca’s president Shirley Collado recently left to head a California non-profit. Gary has looked at the financial and enrollment results and compares them to some New York State peer private colleges.
By Gary Stocker
You can read the summary and watch Gary present his findings in more detail on YouTube.
Students, faculty, and many others have been upset about the proposed faculty cuts at Ithaca College in New York State. We looked at six years of financial, enrollment, and outcome data for Ithaca and compared it to eight other private colleges in New York State. I will tell you that the overall financial situation at Ithaca is not as bad as many of its peer colleges. However, there are some troubling patterns worthy of being of concern to the leadership in that organization:
1. Expense growth has been little over $19 million
2. Core revenue has decreased almost $12 million
3. FTE enrollment is down almost 200 students
(Reporting period 2014-2019. Source: National Center for Education Statistics – most recent data available.)
The strengths Ithaca College brings are a strong 6-year graduation rate (74%) and strong endowment at over $330 million.
So, what does this mean for Ithaca college? It means they are typical. They are fighting the same intense market for traditional college students that every other public and private college is fighting. It is the unfunded tuition discounts, often called merit aid or merit scholarships, that is decreasing Ithaca 's, and most if not all other college's, revenue. At the same time, Ithaca College's expenses over the last six years have gone up appreciably over $13 million. That's a long-term formula for financial and operational trauma. It's difficult to grow out of this bad balance of expenses and revenues because new programs, new degrees only come with guaranteed additional costs, not additional revenues.
The higher education market, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest, has too many college seats, too many classroom seats, whether it's in-person or online, and not enough students to fill them. Ithaca College is just one of many going through this phase. Almost without exception, when cutbacks of any type are shared protests develop. From faculty, from students, sometimes from staff, sometimes from communities. It's simply part of the process that higher education is going through now.
