Announced this week an analysis of nearly 1,700 public and private nonprofit colleges being unveiled this week by Bain & Company finds that one-third of the institutions have been on an “unsustainable financial path” in recent years, and an additional 28 percent are “at risk of slipping into an unsustainable condition.”
At a surprising number of colleges, “operating expenses are getting higher” and “they’re running out of cash to cover it,” says Jeff Denneen, a Bain partner who heads the consulting firm’s American higher-education practice.
Bain and Sterling Partners, a private-equity firm, collaborated on the project. They have published their findings on a publicly available interactive Web site that allows users to type in the name of a college and see where it falls on the analysts’ nine-part matrix.
And with the sterling reputation and absolute credibility of Bain Capital…well, who would ever question anything they have to say?