CEO Notebook

I know many of our schools were on spring break throughout the month of March, and I took the opportunity to take a break of my own. I’m doing my best to model a balanced work life! And I would encourage all school business leaders to do the same.

While I was away, NBOA’s research team released our annual Financial State of the Industry. This year’s report analyzes financial and operational indicators from BIIS, our custom data analysis platform, over the years 2022-2024. This report has become a standard temperature check of independent school financial and operational health, and I’m pleased to report we didn’t find anything overly worrisome in the numbers from the more than 748 participating independent schools.

Here are a few highlights worth noting, from all reporting schools:

• Median enrollment rose over the past two years by 4%. A little more than half (56%) of schools reported an enrollment increase, with 40% experiencing a decline and 4% having no change.
• Median tuition price topped $30,000 for the first time. The median price of $31,273 in 2023-24 reflects a 5.9% increase from 2022-23.
• Net tuition and fees per student increased 3.9% to a median of $25,528, while total operating expenses per student jumped 5.4% to a median of $33,884.
• In one of the biggest indicator shifts, the median gap per student increased 13.9% over the past two years, to $6,968, while annual giving per student was a mixed bag – it declined for day schools but increased for schools with a boarding component.

The robust report, which draws on data from nearly two-thirds of NBOA’s membership thanks in no small part to our partnership with NAIS’s Data Analysis for School Leadership (DASL) platform, examines 17 indicators of financial and operational health. It includes medians by enrollment and school type (boarding and day) as well as benchmarks in a range of percentiles. If you’re busy (and who isn’t!), you can turn to the executive summary and select which indicators to home in on.

“A business officer’s key responsibility is being a good steward of their school’s financial resources in service of their missions,” said Elizabeth Dabney, senior director, research and data analysis, of this year’s report. “Our hope is that this annual snapshot of the financial status of the independent school community provides context for a school’s individual financial performance and is a helpful resource for school business leaders to use in strategic planning and board conversations.”

Sincere thanks to the participating member schools that shared financial and operational data during the DASL/BIIS data collection last fall, which made this analysis and reporting possible. Thanks again to our partners at NAIS, which has streamlined data entry for our collective members, resulting in more comprehensive research findings for the entire independent school community.

Our goal as always, is that with this report in hand, as with all of NBOA’s programs, products and services, you are more informed when making decisions for your school in partnership with the head of school, enrollment and advancement leaders, and your board of trustees. When you make your decisions for the coming school year, be it about tuition levels, plant debt, annual giving, or another critical area of school health, you do so with greater confidence supported by clean, reliable and actionable data. As the saying goes, a margin is what makes our schools’ incredible missions possible. And supporting your school’s mission is the business that both you and NBOA are in!

Follow NBOA President and CEO Jeff Shields on LinkedIn.