Future of Division III

[Kuiper]

This statement from the President of Ithaca is better than the statement from the President at Wittenberg because there are at least a few more details, but when multiple Presidents are standing up and saying they are not closing, it's a bad sign that they are close enough to closing that it's better to say it than to stay silent and have people guess.

https://theithacan.org/68443/news/administrators-confident-in-eliminating-budget-deficit-as-ic-misses-enrollment-target/

President La Jerne Cornish opened the meeting by acknowledging the difficult financial situation that the college is facing.

"The reality is that the pressures facing higher education did not emerge overnight, and they will not be resolved in one single budget cycle," Cornish said. "This work requires sustained attention, difficult choices and a willingness to continue adapting as circumstances evolve."

Enrollment
Rakin "Rock" Hall, vice president for enrollment management, said the college has a total incoming enrollment of around 1,145 students, 35 students less than the college's enrollment goal of 1,180 incoming students.

Cornish said the total incoming enrollment of 1,145 students is a prediction that includes the anticipated melt, meaning prospective students who deposited but do not end up enrolling at the college. She said the number of incoming students could change based on the size of the melt and as more transfer students commit to the college.

"What this moment underscores is how narrow the margin is for tuition-dependent institutions like ours," Cornish said. "A relatively small enrollment variance can have significant financial implications, which is why continued discipline and alignment remain necessary."

Hall said he encourages members of the IC campus community to keep engaging with prospective students.

"Everything that we do matters," Hall said. "Every engagement, every handshake, every phone call, it works to bring in the class. So we'll keep up that same momentum, that same energy and we'll be more mindful about how we understand and anticipate the head count."

College finances
Tim Downs, senior vice president and chief financial officer, said the Board of Trustees approved a budget for FY 2027 where the college will operate in a $4 million budget deficit. He said the Board of Trustees also approved a capital budget expenditure of about $17 million.

Downs said that since the Class of 2026 came in at over 1,400 students in Fall 2022, the college knew that those students graduating would reduce the size of the student body. He said the college's decision to decrease its enrollment goal to 4,500 students will help it not see as much loss in revenue because of an enrollment drop.

Downs said that while the college did miss its enrollment goal by about 35 students, the college also decreased its discount rate for the incoming class. Discount rate refers to the portion of the cost of attendance students pay after receiving aid. The discount rate for incoming students in Fall 2025 was 63.4%, but the college reduced the rate to 62% for Fall 2026.

"We did learn our students are very price sensitive," Downs said. "As we looked at our future budgets, we had to take that into account and factor in what's it going to take from an institutional aid standpoint to continue to land a class."

Cornish said the overwhelming feedback received from potential donors and alumni was that the college was not ready for a capital campaign because of the amount of turnover in the Division of Advancement at the college. The college is currently searching for a new vice president for advancement, and the new hire will be the fifth person to hold that role in the past eight years.

"We are not, we are not closing, and I'll say it again, we are not closing," Cornish said. "We will be better and stronger in the days to come. Trust me on that."

[Ron Boerger]

I applaud how forthcoming Ithaca is being here, but this is a school with over half a billion in investments, a relatively small amount of debt ($100M), and which, prior to 2025, showed serious profitability ($37M in 2024, $36M in 2023, $40M in 2022) on annual revenues in the $310-330M range.  Their ability to reduce their discount rate in this environment is significant and unusual.  In 2025, even though they reported an operating loss of $9.3M, net assets increased $27M due to a serious return on their investment portfolio.  Missing an enrollment target by 35 students is almost noise when you enroll over 4,000 undergrads - and they are graduating over 85% of their students (as of Fall 2024) which is well above the private school average (76%).

For what it's worth, Forbes gave Ithaca a 3.48/B+ financial grade.