University of Baltimore

Baltimore, MD

FY 2023-24 fragility

/ 100

low

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

$6,097

$14.6M total debt ÷ 2,391 FTE

IPEDS-reported debt / FTE · trend

▼ 25% since FY 2004-05 ($8,173)

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 schools in public systems not yet in our curated map (CSU, UT, TAMUS, etc.), the system pool is currently attributed entirely to the flagship campus per the dedupe pass; per-student numbers at those flagships are overstated until allocation is added. 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: 6.6% → 9.9% · Instruction: 39.3% → 29.6%

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

10.6:1

2,391 student FTE ÷ 226 full-time admin

76% below Carnegie peer average — more admin-dense than peers

Carnegie reference

44.1:1

Master's Colleges & Universities (Larger) · n=360

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

MD HS-only median

Business/Commerce General
Bachelor · 223 completers in earnings cohort
PASS +35K
Health and Medical Administrative Services
Bachelor · 49 completers in earnings cohort
PASS +30K
Multi/Interdisciplinary Studies Other
Bachelor · 61 completers in earnings cohort
PASS +28K
Criminal Justice and Corrections
Bachelor · 147 completers in earnings cohort
PASS +27K
Human Services General
Bachelor · 29 completers in earnings cohort
PASS +22K

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	$20,790 real net tuition / FTE	0 / 25
Debt Burden	7.29 viability ratio	5 / 25
Liquidity	286 days cash on hand	0 / 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)

$135.8M

Total expenses (F1C191)

$129.8M

Net tuition revenue (F1B01)

$32.8M

Auxiliary enterprises revenue (F1B05)

$6.0M

State appropriations (F1B11)

$62.0M

Endowment EOY (F1H02)

$75.8M

Long-term debt (F1A10)

$14.6M

Expendable net position (F1N05)

$106.3M

Interest expense (F1C19IN)

$124K

DSO debt — campus-specific

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DSO debt — system-level pool

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