Initial reports from the 2019-20 academic year highlight the financial challenges at schools affected by falling tuition revenue. A Business Journals analysis of roughly two dozen annual reports filed to date identified 10 private schools where net tuition revenue dropped year over year. The combined hit to their budgets was approximately $24 million, or down 3% from what was reported in fiscal 2019.
Smaller schools also were among the hardest hit. At Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida, net tuition revenue fell 25% last year despite a reduction in student scholarships and discounts. Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, reported a $3 million, or 4%, drop, while La Salle University in Philadelphia reported a $2.6 million decline, equal to a 3.5% falloff from the prior year.
All three schools reported corresponding cuts to expense line items including instruction,...
