Forbes just released their 2025 College Financial Grades, and the results show a clear divide between schools that manage money wisely and those drowning in debt. Elite colleges with massive endowments like Princeton and Yale continue to thrive, while smaller institutions relying on tuition dollars face collapse. This report exposes how reckless spending and leftist campus priorities have put many colleges on life support.
The grading system looks at nine key factors including endowment size per student, operating margins, and tuition dependence. Schools like Brigham Young University and Hillsdale College scored top marks by keeping costs low, avoiding federal funding strings, and focusing on core education missions. Meanwhile, fancy liberal arts colleges with bloated administrative budgets and niche gender studies programs are bleeding cash.
Over 180 schools received a “D” grade this year, signaling severe financial distress. Tuition-dependent colleges got hit hardest as families reject overpriced degrees in woke activism. Enrollment drops and stock market dips crushed schools that prioritized social justice initiatives over balanced budgets. Even wealthy universities like Stanford posted negative operating margins after overspending on diversity bureaucrats.
The Trump administration’s education cuts accelerated this reckoning by slashing taxpayer handouts to failing institutions. This forced colleges to either adapt or perish – exactly how free markets should work. Schools clinging to federal subsidies instead of attracting donors or controlling costs now face extinction.
Conservatives argue this shakeout exposes higher education’s moral and financial bankruptcy. While Ivy League schools sit on billion-dollar endowments, they still charge $90,000/year and push anti-American ideologies. Meanwhile, responsible colleges like Grove City College and Christendom College operate debt-free by rejecting government interference and leftist fads.
The solution isn’t more bailouts but returning to traditional values. Schools must cut administrative fat, focus on practical degrees, and stop indoctrinating students with Marxist garbage. Parents are voting with their wallets – applications surge for colleges promoting patriotism, religious values, and real-world skills over social engineering.
Forbes’ report proves that universities embracing fiscal responsibility and American ideals will survive the coming education revolution. The rest deserve to fail. As enrollment plummets, expect more campus closures unless woke administrators urgently reform their spendthrift ways.
This financial crisis could finally break the left’s stranglehold on higher education. Market forces are cleansing academia of wasteful institutions that put politics over students. The future belongs to colleges that teach truth, respect taxpayers, and live within their means.
