New College of Florida
NCF is proposing to assume $28M in additional principal debt (~$60M all-in cost) to acquire buildings with no new revenue. Debt-per-student divided by (tuition + aux revenue)-per-student — how many years of the school’s combined revenue base would service the debt — lands NCF at 4.6×. Size-matched public-LAC peers run 0-1.7×. The private LACs that collapsed since 2019 ran ~1×. Full comparison →
NCF’s published fragility score of 78 (high) is based on FY 2023-24 IPEDS data. The proposed FY 2026-27 operating budget — a $25M state-appropriation cut absorbed via $14M of one-time reserve draw, $7.9M salary growth, and a 4× athletics jump — would push the score directionally to roughly 85, deeper into the high-fragility bucket. 78 was bad enough; all available data says the financial situation is actually getting worse. Full FY 26-27 analysis →
Florida BOG identified NCF as the SUS’s least efficient school in its October 2025 Efficiency Study — 6.3× the system-average cost per degree and 18.5× UCF’s administrative staffing density. Line-item analysis of the FY 25-26 operating budget against the report →
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.
Athletics & enrollment
Share of undergrads who play varsity sports (EADA, U.S. Dept of Education). A rising ratio over time at a tuition-dependent private is the “athletic ratchet” — adding sports or expanding rosters to fill seats as enrollment pressure mounts. Snapshots taken at ~6-year intervals.
NAIA Division I
What EADA counts: a student who participated in at least one intercollegiate (varsity) competition during the academic year. Excludes redshirts, JV / developmental rosters, and club sports. The actual athletic-recruit footprint can be substantially larger than this count. At D3 schools, “athletic aid” reads $0 in EADA because institutional merit aid that functions as recruitment subsidy isn’t classified as athletic aid — so the discount-rate signal on this page is the right place to look for that money.
vs 18.4% reported (153)
kept-peer range suggests 44–68% (364–565 athletes)
| Peer | UG | Ratio |
|---|---|---|
| University of Science and Arts of OklahomaOK(trimmed) | 882 | 13.2:1 |
| University of Minnesota-MorrisMN | 883 | 7.4:1 |
| Massachusetts College of Liberal ArtsMA | 657 | 11.2:1 |
| University of Virginia's College at WiseVA(trimmed) | 1,075 | 6.7:1 |
| Kentucky State UniversityKY | 1,162 | 11.5:1 |
Peers chosen by similarity score: same control + NCAA division weighted highest, plus Carnegie classification and UG enrollment band. The highest and lowest peer ratios are trimmed before averaging so one outlier doesn’t shift the range; the implied range is the school’s coach count multiplied by the kept peers’ min and max ratios, capped at UG enrollment.
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.
- Biological and Physical SciencesBachelor · 46 completers in earnings cohortPASS +9K
- Liberal Arts and Sciences General Studies and HumanitiesBachelor · 81 completers in earnings cohortPASS +7K
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.
Florida tuition freeze drives system-wide pricing-power signal
The Florida State University System has not raised in-state undergraduate tuition since 2014 by legislative direction. With ~30% cumulative inflation since then, real net tuition per FTE has fallen materially across the system — most FL SUS schools transitioned from a pricing-power score of 0 (growing real tuition) through 2018 to a 25 (>10% real decline) by 2020-21. That contributes a full 25 of 100 points to most FL SUS composites in recent years. The signal is real (revenue per student is materially lower in inflation-adjusted dollars) but policy-driven rather than a market rejection of value — applies system-wide, not as a school-specific finding. FSU is the rare exception (pricing-power 0 in FY 2022-23), likely from non-resident or graduate-program tuition mix offsetting the in-state freeze.
Debt-per-student previously double-counted (now corrected)
NCF reports $19M of long-term debt in IPEDS (`F1A10`) — Certificates of Participation. The LLM enrichment also identified that same $19M as DSO debt under the label "New College of Florida (Certificates of Participation)", which caused the per-student debt figure to count it twice ($38M total). The fix nets the LLM campus total against IPEDS-reported plant debt: `off_balance_sheet = max(0, LLM − IPEDS)`. Because NCF's LLM total ($19M) equals its IPEDS reporting ($19M), the genuine off-balance-sheet component is zero, and the total debt is correctly $19M. This netting rule was applied across 76 schools where the LLM enrichment captured on-balance-sheet debt that's already in IPEDS — total $11.74B of double-counts removed.
Sustained high fragility since FY 2008-09
NCF has scored ≥60 (high) every fiscal year since FY 2008-09 except a brief 2010-2011 dip to moderate. Peaked at composite 100 in FY 2015-16. FY 2022-23 reading: thin liquidity at 9.5 days cash on hand (one of the lowest in the FL SUS), viability ratio 0.04 (state-pool DSO debt now incorporated). The post-2023 governance overhaul and athletics buildout aren't yet visible in IPEDS — those will reflect in subsequent year filings.
Latest-year breakdown (FY 2023-24)
| Pillar | Raw Metric | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Operating Margin | 25.0% | 5 / 25 |
| Pricing Power | $0 real net tuition / FTE | 25 / 25 |
| Debt Burden | -0.05 viability ratio | 23 / 25 |
| Liquidity | -7 days cash on hand | 25 / 25 |
Peer schools
Closest by Fragility Score in FY 2023-24. Financial similarity only — geographic / regional clustering is a separate (future) feature.
Selected raw financials — FY 2023-24
GASB / IPEDS Finance F1A. DSO totals from LLM enrichment of audited financial statements; see /sources for citations.