The University of the Arts
Composite Fragility Score over time
Pillar trajectories
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.
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.
Tuition discount rate
The share of gross tuition revenue that’s offset by institutional grant aid (scholarships funded from the operating budget plus endowed scholarships). A rising discount rate combined with falling real net tuition is the canonical signal that a school is buying enrollment with aid that the market won’t support.
Institutional grant aid (F2C05 funded + F2C06 unfunded) divided by gross tuition revenue (F2D01 net tuition + grants). This is the all-student, institution-wide rate. Schools and NACUBO typically publish a first-time-in-college (FTIC) freshman rate, which runs 5–10 points higher because recruitment merit aid is front-loaded onto incoming classes and steps down for upperclassmen.
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.
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.
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.
- Film/Video and Photographic ArtsBachelor · 57 completers in earnings cohortFAIL -4K
- MusicBachelor · 26 completers in earnings cohortFAIL -4K
- Drama/Theatre Arts and StagecraftBachelor · 36 completers in earnings cohortPASS +8K
- DanceBachelor · 35 completers in earnings cohortPASS +4K
- Design and Applied ArtsBachelor · 53 completers in earnings cohortPASS +3K
- Arts Entertainment and Media ManagementBachelor · 35 completers in earnings cohortPASS +3K
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.
Notes
Editorial context drawn from manual review of this school’s data, methodology interactions, and external reporting.
Pricing-power oscillation was a leading indicator of closure
UArts closed in June 2024. The pricing-power pillar score swings between 0 (growing real tuition) and 25 (>10% 5-year decline) across the 2010s and early 2020s — that whipsaw is the real signal, not a methodology artifact. Three factors compound: (1) a small enrollment base of roughly 2,000 students makes per-FTE metrics sensitive to small absolute shifts; (2) institutional grants (F2C05 + F2C06) more than doubled from $17M in FY 2004-05 to $39M in FY 2019-20 — the school was discounting heavily to hold enrollment, so net tuition stayed flat in nominal dollars while sticker rose; (3) undergraduate FTE dropped 19% in a single year between AY 2019-20 and AY 2020-21 (1,735 → 1,400), and net tuition dropped 22%. The pricing-power pillar uses a 5-year rolling change, so each year's score reflects whatever window ends in that year — the whipsaw signature is what you'd expect for an unstable revenue base. Score volatility itself can be the signal.
Latest-year breakdown (FY 2022-23)
| Pillar | Raw Metric | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Operating Margin | -1.8% | 25 / 25 |
| Pricing Power | $22,682 real net tuition / FTE | 25 / 25 |
| Debt Burden | 0.20 viability ratio | 23 / 25 |
| Liquidity | 43 days cash on hand | 16 / 25 |
Peer schools
Closest by Fragility Score in FY 2022-23. Financial similarity only — geographic / regional clustering is a separate (future) feature.
Selected raw financials — FY 2022-23
FASB / IPEDS Finance F2.