CBFA 2025 Presentation: The Collegiate Death Pool: How Private Universities Can Prepare for the Demographic Cliff

As the higher education landscape confronts the realities of the enrollment cliff, many faith-based universities face unprecedented financial and demographic pressures. This presentation offers a data-driven evaluation of institutional survivability across private, not-for-profit, religiously affiliated universities, with a particular focus on differences by denomination.

Originally a skeptic of the enrollment cliff narrative, Dr. James Long set out to validate administrative claims about declining enrollment and underinvestment in instruction. What he discovered was more alarming than anticipated. Drawing from IPEDS, IRS Form 990s, and state demographic data, Dr. Long developed a composite "Collegiate Survivability Index" (CSI) that integrates three critical dimensions: adjusted financial health (aCFI), academic efficiency, and market saturation.

This session walks through the construction of the CSI and presents an interactive map of survivability scores for every private university in the U.S., followed by a denomination-level comparison of average institutional risk. Participants will explore which religious groups appear most vulnerable to closure and which have models that offer resilience.

Attendees will leave with practical recommendations for how faculty, administrators, and policymakers can respond to the enrollment cliff—through advocacy, curricular innovation, and strategic decision-making. The presentation includes access to a suite of free online tools and visualizations through the presenter’s project website: universitydeathpool.com.