Milligan University
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.
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 II
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 72.2% reported (586)
kept-peer range suggests 77–100% (626–812 athletes)
range capped at UG enrollment (812) — raw upper bound exceeded the physical ceiling
| Peer | UG | Ratio |
|---|---|---|
| Culver-Stockton CollegeMO | 779 | 16.1:1 |
| Hastings CollegeNE | 890 | 9.8:1 |
| Bryan College-DaytonTN(trimmed) | 722 | 22.2:1 |
| Bethel UniversityIN | 951 | 8.9:1 |
| Northwest UniversityWA(trimmed) | 625 | 5.2:1 |
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.
Latest-year breakdown (FY 2023-24)
| Pillar | Raw Metric | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Operating Margin | 6.4% | 15 / 25 |
| Pricing Power | $15,125 real net tuition / FTE | 25 / 25 |
| Debt Burden | 5.80 viability ratio | 0 / 25 |
| Liquidity | 453 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.
Selected raw financials — FY 2023-24
FASB / IPEDS Finance F2.