Financial Sustainability?

Patrick F. Bassett, NAIS President

Financial Survivability: The Economic Meltdown –

Brutal Facts vs. Unshakeable BeliefsPatrick F. Bassett, NAIS President

1. Higher than usual summer attrition and lower than usual enrollments resulting in a shortfall of students, in some cases up to fifty off budget.

2. Current families of higher incomes starting to demand and qualify for financial aid as tuitions have skyrocketed while family salaries remain flat and equity in homes and investments tanks.

3. Variable bond rates that have soared, in some cases, from 3% to 10%, impacting heavily and unexpectedly the current year budget’s debt service obligations.

The “Perfect Storm”

4. A demographic downturn in the number of school-age children in many locales where independent schools are located as housing stock and cost of living become prohibitively expensive for young families with children.

5. A climate of caution where even families with substantial dual incomes fear a job loss could bring financial catastrophe, making independent school tuition, heretofore considered a necessity, all of a sudden considered a discretionary luxury.

6. A chilling zephyr on feelings about one’s wealth and capacity for eleemosynary giving.

The “Perfect Storm”

• In the last forty years (1967 - 2007), for the six recessions (lasting six or more months): total giving to all charities rose on average 6.2% (vs. 8.4% in non-recession years).

• The exception: higher ed sector giving: giving declined, -1% during short recessions and about -2% during recessions lasting over 8 months. Why?

• Importance of focusing message and targeting donors: Marketing principles: “It’s about them.” “Emotions first.”

Impact on Enrollment & Giving of a Weak EconomySource: Giving USA Spotlight (Issue 3, 2008)

NAIS Schools Holding On during RecessionsRecession Years (in

Red)Avg Enrollment Annual Giving per

Student1968-69 339 $ 1701969-70 345 $ 1471970-71 337 $ 150

1972-73 347 $ 2031973-74 359 $ 2201974-75 361 $ 2031975-76 360 $ 173

NAIS Schools Holding On during RecessionsRecession Years (in

Red)Avg Enrollment Annual Giving per

Student1979-80 387 $ 2671980-81 390 $ 4201981-82 397 $ 313

1989-90 403 $ 8621990-91 408 $ 8751991-92 414 $ 907

NAIS Schools Holding On during Recessions

Recession Years (in Red)

Avg Enrollment Annual Giving per Student

2000-01 487 $ 1,2482001-02 485 $ 1,2732002-03 482 $ 1,343

The Financial Crisis - Immediate First Steps1. Endowment: Sit tight and ride out the storm.

Financial Consultant: "Investments have historically yielded positive results to investors who bought when others were fearful, sold when most others were euphoric, and stood their ground when the situation was unclear. While past performance does not guarantee future results, one defense against short-term fear is long-term confidence."

2. Cash: “Trust in God…but tie your camel.” Consider putting cash in FDIC-insured savings or brokerage accounts

3. Debt-Financed Bonds:Jeff Lewis (lewis@icemiller.com) Not a great time to begin a bond-

financed campaign…. For those that are already impacted by the credit crunch and related fall-out, there is not a single source of guidance: Remain in close contact with banking partners, bond counsel, and government regulators.

4. Financial Scenario-Planning: A Contingency Plan. A Disaster Plan.

Scenario 1: A Contingency Financial PlanContingency Financial Plan: Income down 5-10%• Freezing of discretionary expenditures; • Postponing of renovations and replacements;• Doubling up of assignments to cover staff attrition

rather than hiring replacements.• Expansion of financial aid for current families newly

demonstrating need. • Recruitment strategy and admissions policy

adjustments (whatever it takes to fill the school short of mission drift): acceptance of mid-year enrollments; net tuition revenue discounting; merit aid.

Contingency Financial Plan: Income down 5-10%What NOT to do (unless on the verge of collapse):

1. Don’t borrow more. 2. Don’t abandon your spending policy, taking a

larger draw from the endowment that invades principal, since mortgaging the present against the future only exacerbates the factors that contributed to our problem in the first place.

3. Don’t publicly commit to unrealistically high or inappropriately timed capital campaign goals.

Scenario 2: A Financial Disaster PlanDisaster Plan: Income down 20% or more.1. Make a heroic commitment to maintain full services, to

the extent possible, the Katrina model of being the one safe harbor in the storm for kids and parents.

2. “Right-size” the school: Downsize staffing = “rightsizing”: toward a more financially sustainable ratio of students:staff, a one-time opportunity to prune the shrub so it can grow back strongly.

3. Necessity being the mother of invention, under dire circumstances the idea of merging neighboring independent schools together begins to look more attractive and less impossible.

“Unshakeable Beliefs” Counter “Brutal Facts”1. We have the freedom to act quickly and decisively

when needed, since we are effectively independent of government or church in our governance and finance.

2. We have the capacity to act with resources behind us since we have intellectual, physical, and social capital, unmatched by any other PS-12 segment.

3. We have confidence our schools “will not only endure but prevail,” since history is on our side: If any institutions are “built to last,” it is independent schools.

“Unshakeable Beliefs” Counter “Brutal Facts”Within challenges, lie opportunities to make…1.A dramatic commitment school by school to

sustainability financially, environmentally, demographically, programmatically, and globally.

2.A transition from our truculent insistence on independence to a more efficient openness to interdependence as we collaborate with other schools and other sectors to market ourselves, to share resources, and to co-create 21st. C. schools.

“Unshakeable Beliefs” Counter “Brutal Facts”

Within challenges, lie opportunities to make…3.A paradigm shift (“Scarcity and Privilege” –

Peter Cobb): What’s “required" in the architecture of our schools and in the architecture of our lives”? To recognize that “to live life abundantly, this generation of young people does not need to live” wastefully, and “to live life richly, this generation of young people does not have to consume” ceaselessly.

Financial Literacy: Preparing Future LeadersSampling of School Programs:• Saint Andrew's School (Boca Raton, FL): Frontiers of

Science & Technology, a project-based class to produce an invention: technical writing; patent proposal; marketing plan.

• Greenhill School (Addison, TX): microeconomic theory --markets, taxation, and social issues like health care, poverty, and the environment; macroeconomic theory --fiscal and monetary policy, investment, and international trade; the math of finance & economics (calculus techniques to compute producer and consumer surpluses; Gompertz curves to compare rates of growth; Lorentz curves to look at income and production distributions, statistics & regression analysis).

• Westminster Schools (Atlanta, GA): Coursework in and center for philanthropy.

Financial Literacy: Preparing Future Leaders• Linsly School (Wheeling, WV): Economics (entrepreneurship,

personal finance, the stock market game, and starting a business)• Holton Arms (Bethesda, MD): 8th Grade "Paycheck Project";

AP Economics; upper school "Investment Club"; "Financial Literacy Club" (run by an alumna in the financial services field).

• Choate (Wallingford, CT): Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, International Economics. The International Economics Olympiad.

• Tampa Preparatory School (Tampa, FL): Macro economics: SimCity 2000 and the stock market game; design a prospectus and present to venture capitalists--on a business of choice.

• Sayre School (Lexington, KY): Financial Literacy (Don Jacobs Personal Financial, Legal, and Civic Seminars - six seminars on earning, owing, spending, investing, saving, and giving, with guest speakers and mentors.

Financial Literacy: Preparing Future LeadersThe Leadership Part:• Leadership training: part of “first curriculum”

(deliberate) or “second curriculum” (opportunistic, “teachable moments”)?

• What model of leadership are we teaching? Conventional, leader-as-hero and “positional

authority” model? New leader-as-coach model, the “influential

authority” style that the world of the workplace and the public square seem increasingly to respect and demand?

Team-learning?

Financial Literacy: Preparing Future Leaders

The Leadership Part:• Katrina and the “crash of 2008” reveal the

failure of leadership at all levels: government, private sector, non-profits.

• Will independent schools, long known for producing leaders, consciously address this change and teach and model leadership accordingly?

Financial Literacy: Preparing Future LeadersThe Leadership Part:

Many of the people we need to make all of his happen are in the room. Let’s get to work.

Financial Sustainability/Survivability

The End!(Appendix Slides Follow)

SSS Affordability Data: Pressure on Incomes

Tuition

Tuition Amt Chg

(A)

Tuition Percent Chg

Full Pay Inc

Income Amt Chg

(B)

Income Percent Chg

Inc Chg Factor(B÷A)

17,500 -- -- 121,102 -- -- --

18,550 1,050 6% 124,720 3,618 2.99% 3.45%

19,663 1,113 6% 128,550 3,830 3.07% 3.44%

20,843 1,180 6% 132,612 4,062 3.16% 3.44%

22,093 1,251 6% 136,915 4,303 3.24% 3.44%

SSS Affordability Data: % Families Needing AidUS Boston Chicago LA

<$100K 82.2 72.3 75.6 78.66$100 - $125K

7.2 9.9 9.27 7.5

$125 - $150K

4.0 6.22 5.55 4.63

$150 - $200K

3.1 5.27 4.37 4.02

$200K+ 3.5 6.31 5.2 5.19Median Inc $49,565 $64,116 $60,877 $51,155

SSS Affordability Data: % Families Needing Aid

Assumptions: using SSS 2007-08 methodology Family of four, two parents, two children, parents age 45, both work (one FT@ min wage), no assets - parent or student, OH state/other taxes, no adjustment for local cost of living factors

*Families below this income show eligibility for some financial aid

Tuition-- Eligible for Aid Until…* Day Schools One Child Two Children

$14,050 $113,275 $163,310

$15,684 $119,055 $175,400

$17,555 $125,650 $189,250

First dollar EFC = $54,740

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