Faith Based Failure!: Exploring The Reasons Faith Based Colleges Fail

Faith-based higher education institutions face challenges ranging from secularizing the general population to geographic and demographic trends threatening their very survival.

Spending several years as the CFO at a small Catholic institution and multiple years of study, Dr. Barton identified common data points that predicted the failure of faith-based institutions and provided governing boards and administrators areas for focus and improvement.

The findings of this study suggest that while the FRR score provides a reasonable indication of financial fragility over a subsequent five-year period, the FRR score is little better than a coin flip in predicting whether a religiously affiliated higher education institution will be financially troubled enough to close within the subsequent five years. The study found that using a multi-factor model to predict closure results in higher predictive accuracy during the observed period.