Insights
To Retain Control, GapSource
As CFOs and their teams prep for the annual audit, some reflection is warranted. How much of what you are frantically trying to analyze and tie out could have been updated at an earlier time or kept current throughout the year? What keeps you from...
What we charge and what it costs. Why the disconnect?
Academically gifted students tend to gravitate toward higher cost programs and benefit from out-sized merit awards, bringing what they pay down substantially.
Tuition Discounting and Strategy
With the latest NACUBO survey reporting an average discount rate for private schools exceeding 50% and other analyses showing softness in student demand, one has to wonder how these two factors will play out. In our experience with over eighty schools of various...
Higher Education and … Harley? Lessons from a market laggard
There are certain brands that have been around for our lifetime and that of our grandparents. Think of Ford, General Electric, IBM and the venerable Harley Davidson. While each has survived decades of depression, war, energy crises, credit implosion and...
When a Lawyer isn’t Enough
An attorney friend specializes in health care and higher education. His assistance has been invaluable, ensuring that contractual provisions don’t put us in a legal trap at some future point. He will tell you, however, that the work performed by his firm...
An Area of Higher Education Growth, that too many are ignoring
In its April 27, 2018 edition, The Atlantic reported the following: The numbers are wild: Harvard admitted just 4.6 percent of its nearly 43,000 applicants for the class that begins this fall. Stanford accepted only 4.29 percent, and...
Are you an investor, a harvester or just one who hopes?
In an interview for an upcoming book, the author asked me to characterize the nature of private higher education at this time. It just so happened that a colleague had asked the same question about a week ago, affording time for reflection. My response is that...
Section 117(d) survives. Now what do we do about tuition remission?
Those of us who have worked in higher education dodged a bullet with tax reform. Section 117(d) remains in force, allowing employees and their dependents to receive qualified tuition reductions tax free, at least for undergraduate study. Most call this...
Student to faculty relationship versus ratio
Thinking back on my undergraduate years, a handful of relationships stand out four decades hence. Lifelong friendships were forged during those years, including one with a girlfriend who became my wife. Various speakers graced our campus with pearls of...
I expect donations to increase under tax reform. Here’s why.
I cannot count the number of letters I have been asked to send to congress that adamantly predict the demise of charitable giving if either of the current tax reform proposals become law. Some claim that giving will go down forty percent or more. Let me go...
Insights Blog
Our take on the current reality of higher ed.
Curated articles, opinion pieces, analysis and advice from one CFO to another.