"Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!"
"Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!"
Almost every independent and parochial school runs on a financial model it chose to imitate from wealthy universities: an endowment, an annual fund, a capital campaign. In this episode I diagnose where that model came from, why it fits a research university and strains a small tuition-funded school, and what a healthier one looks like.
I trace the two bloodlines that ended up in the same place: the endowed prep academies born as junior colleges, and the Catholic schools built on the collection plate and the near-free labor of teaching sisters. The origins run from John Harvard’s 1638 bequest to Yale’s 1890 annual fund, and through the NAIS survey where more than 90% of heads named financial sustainability as what keeps them up at night.
Then several moves already in use at schools that decided to stop performing: indexed tuition, auxiliary revenue that can outpace the cost curve, online learning, and shared back-office services across institutions. Plus one question worth taking to whoever keeps your books before the next budget meeting.
Hit play. The doctor is in.
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