Aligning Financial Sustainability with Student Access and Success: Opportunities for Private Colleges

This report highlights long-term academic and financial opportunities for small colleges by attracting and retaining those students who face the highest barriers to enrollment and completion.

Private nonprofit colleges that are smaller, less competitive, tuition-dependent, and/or have relatively low endowments are consistently identified as the most financially vulnerable, even more so during a pandemic. Yet researchers found that these schools can turn around their fiscal performance by reframing service to students with the most challenges–those from low-income households, who are first-generation and/ or are people of color–as an opportunity, rather than a challenge.