Program

Education Doctorate

Year Approved

2018

First Advisor

Whitman, Mary

Abstract

Very small colleges, under 750 students, are valuable and yet vulnerable institutions in American higher education. Without financial stability, very small colleges are more susceptible to failure in the face of economic challenges. Very small colleges adopt many of the same financial strategies used by larger colleges without consideration that the size of the college may require different strategies. This study considered the relationship between the unfunded tuition discount rate and the financial health of private, non-profit, four-year, baccalaureate colleges. Enrollment, institutional debt and institutional wealth were then used as moderators in a moderation regression analysis to determine the effect each of these variables may have on the relationship between the unfunded tuition discount and the financial health. The findings of this study revealed a negative relationship between the unfunded tuition discount rate and the financial health of very small colleges. This relationship was moderated by both enrollment and institutional wealth. Implications and recommendations for practitioners include the need to reduce the unfunded tuition discount at very small colleges in order to improve financial health.

Degree Name

Education Doctorate

Document Type

Doctoral dissertation

Terms of Use and License Information

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

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