Upon Further Review

I asked a prominent scholar at a prominent School of Education at a prominent university to take a look at my work and share his thoughts on the findings.  And this was his comment:

 "It’s a sector where rumors of insolvency have been circulating for a decade or more". 

And my immediate thought was:

"Hyman Roth?  Are you kidding me?"

But I persisted and pretended his well rehearsed as lib diss was a question and did some more research

I selected 2019 as the prior point of comparison since it is 5 years past and pre-COVID.  And without doing a complete workup on cash flows and other asset balances, I used the critical vital sign discussed earlier -months of cash on hand (MOH)  in 2019 in relation to annual operating expenses in 2019 - as an indicator of the financial health and well being of the 44 schools in that year in relation to their financial health and well being today.

 And here are the results:

17 of the 44 schools saw both their comparatively healthy cash positions in 2019 ($32 million on average) and their MOH (2.6) in 2019 decline by 38%  over 5 years.  

27 schools saw their weaker cash positions ($19 million with an MOH of 1.7) increase by 110% and 76% respectively over 5 years. 

And the 17 schools whose cash position weakened have dramatically poorer Staying Power profiles across the array of possible declines in enrollment than the other 27.  

BUT, the 17 schools that are most vulnerable over time are in just about the same position RIGHT NOW as the 27 schools whose financial circumstances have improved over the last 5 years.  

Now, if a school's cash position is an uncontrollable variable, then these data would be stating the obvious.  However, I would begin with the hypothesis that  the cash positions of 17 schools at greater risk today were allowed to weaken by complacent leadership teams,  while managements responded to earlier adversity at the 27 others by  building up their cash positions.   

I shared this new information with the prominent scholar in the prominent School of Education at the prominent University and asked for his further thoughts.  

Crickets.  Perhaps he thought his zinger had won the day.  More likely, he had nothing to say.  

Perhaps one of the professor's students might find this line of inquiry and my hypothesis fertile ground for a PhD thesis.  

And perhaps those with fiduciary responsibilities - and that most certainly includes faculty who expect to share in the governance of their institutions -  will take note.   One brings nothing to the governance table if one begins by assuming finances are someone else's responsibility.