University of Hawaii-West Oahu

Kapolei, HI

FY 2023-24 fragility

/ 100

high

Composite Fragility Score over time

Pillar trajectories

Operating Margin

(Operating revenue − operating expenses) / operating revenue. Industry-standard debt-rating heuristics — Fitch-style bands for privates, Moody's-aligned for publics. Score reflects current year and 3-year rolling average — single positive years don't erase chronic distress.

Amber dot = unusual single-year shift; smoothed metric attenuates impact. Hover for context.

Pricing Power

Real net tuition revenue per FTE, 5-year change. Falling real net tuition + rising discount rate = market rejection of value proposition. Discount rate is the all-student institutional rate (F2C05 + F2C06 funded + unfunded grants over gross tuition); schools typically publish a first-time-in-college rate which runs 5-10 points higher.

Amber dot = unusual single-year shift; smoothed metric attenuates impact. Hover for context.

Debt Burden

Viability ratio (expendable net assets / plant debt) with debt-acceleration penalty. Catches schools whose covenants are at risk because of recent debt issuance.

Amber dot = unusual single-year shift; smoothed metric attenuates impact. Hover for context.

Liquidity

Days cash on hand. Tuition-collapse override prevents 'deathbed cash' from misleading the score (high cash from emergency relief while school is shrinking).

Amber dot = unusual single-year shift; smoothed metric attenuates impact. Hover for context.

Institutional debt per student

Total institutional long-term debt (not student loans) divided by full-time-equivalent enrollment, nominal dollars. For public-university systems with centralized bond debt (UC, FL SUS), the system pool is allocated across sibling campuses proportional to FTE.

Long-term debt per FTE student · FY 2023-24

$42,794

$84.6M total debt ÷ 1,978 FTE

Breakdown: $47.0M IPEDS-reported + $37.6M FTE-allocated system

IPEDS-reported debt / FTE · trend

▼ 0% since FY 2004-05 ($0)

Latest-year debt per FTE student includes IPEDS-reported plant debt plus the LLM-enriched DSO snapshot (off-balance-sheet bonds at affiliated entities — typically FY 2024 audit values). For University of Hawaii System, the system bond pool is the sum of all sibling campuses’ DSO_DEBT_SYSTEM values, allocated to this campus by FTE share — not attributed entirely to the flagship UNITID. The trajectory line shows IPEDS-reported debt only (no DSO) for consistency across years — DSO is a single audit-year snapshot, not a time series.

Administrative spending

Institutional Support (administration) measured two ways, from IPEDS expense-by-function reporting: as a share of total operating expenses alongside Instruction (faculty/teaching), and indexed against net tuition revenue to show whether admin spending tracks the revenue that funds it.

Admin: 10.5% → 10.6% · Instruction: 54.8% → 52.0%

Instruction and Institutional Support as a share of total operating expenses. Instruction is the IPEDS faculty/teaching proxy; Institutional Support is the administrative proxy (executive management, finance, HR, general admin). A narrowing gap means admin is gaining on teaching.

Student-to-admin ratio · AY 2023-24

56.5:1

1,978 student FTE ÷ 35 full-time admin

27% above Carnegie peer average — leaner than peers

Carnegie reference

44.6:1

Baccalaureate (Diverse Fields) · n=258

Mean students-per-admin across schools in the same Carnegie classification (target excluded). Higher means leaner administrative footprint.

What “admin” means here: Management (OCCUPCAT 300) + Business and Financial Operations (OCCUPCAT 310) full-time staff — the “decision-making admin” headcount. Source: IPEDS S2023_OC survey (Fall 2023). This is a headcount metric, not a dollar metric, so it isn’t contaminated by regional salary differences. Not part of the fragility score; surfaced as descriptive context only.

Program earnings outcomes

From the HEA Group’s January 2026 release of program-level earnings data used in AHEAD negotiations. Each tested program is checked against a same-state high-school-graduate earnings benchmark; programs also subject to OBBBA Gainful Employment lose Title IV eligibility on a fail and are flagged AT RISK.

Earnings by Program

Median earnings 4 years post-completion vs the earnings benchmark.

Benchmark

$36,491

HI HS-only median

Multi/Interdisciplinary Studies Other
Bachelor · 83 completers in earnings cohort
PASS +33K
Business Administration Management and Operations
Bachelor · 214 completers in earnings cohort
PASS +20K
Education General
Bachelor · 35 completers in earnings cohort
PASS +18K
Public Administration
Bachelor · 135 completers in earnings cohort
PASS +17K
Liberal Arts and Sciences General Studies and Humanities
Bachelor · 29 completers in earnings cohort
PASS +14K

Source: HEA Group Jan 2026 release using AHEAD-negotiations data. Pooled 2017-18 + 2018-19 completer cohorts; earnings measured CY 2022-23, inflation-adjusted to 2024 (CPI-U). Only programs with sufficient Title-IV completers appear in the test. “AT RISK” = fails the OBBBA Gainful Employment threshold — loss of Title IV eligibility likely, program likely closes.

Latest-year breakdown (FY 2023-24)

Pillar	Raw Metric	Score
Operating Margin	25.0%	5 / 25
Pricing Power	$5,300 real net tuition / FTE	25 / 25
Debt Burden	0.40 viability ratio	23 / 25
Liquidity	111 days cash on hand	8 / 25

Peer schools

Closest by Fragility Score in FY 2023-24. Financial similarity only — geographic / regional clustering is a separate (future) feature.

Less fragile

Schools scoring below

More fragile

Schools scoring above

Selected raw financials — FY 2023-24

GASB / IPEDS Finance F1A. DSO totals from LLM enrichment of audited financial statements; see /sources for citations.

Total revenue (F1B27)

$64.1M

Total expenses (F1C191)

$62.0M

Net tuition revenue (F1B01)

$10.5M

Auxiliary enterprises revenue (F1B05)

$172K

State appropriations (F1B11)

$21.8M

Endowment EOY (F1H02)

$299K

Long-term debt (F1A10)

$47.0M

Expendable net position (F1N05)

$18.9M

Interest expense (F1C19IN)

$821K

DSO debt — campus-specific

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DSO debt — system-level pool

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