Where higher ed decides.
Strategic intelligence for everyone who answers to the Board. Your planning models stay where they are — in Anaplan, in the Excel workbook the budget office trusts. What moves here is the decision itself: the case, the pack, the vote, and the record it leaves behind. Keep your models. Bring the decision.
Your Composite Financial Index stands at 2.14 for FY 2024 — placing you in the 58th percentile of a Statistical Match of ten comparable masters’-large institutions in the Mid-Atlantic.
The trend has steepened since FY22. Holding enrollment flat, I project CFI of 1.82 by FY27 — still above the SACSCOC threshold, but narrowing the buffer your Board…
Your peers are modeling a future you haven’t.
Three roles. Three calendars. The same missing chapter.
You know enrollment will fall. You don’t know by how much, or which programs to defend first.
Your CFI is trending — and you can’t tell if the slope is a warning your accreditor will see first.
The Board wants a five-year plan by Tuesday. Your IR team is still assembling last year’s IPEDS.
Explore. Plan. Act. One workflow, in that order.
For Provost, CFO, and President — compared to whom, before any number. A peer-calibrated scenario, before any narrative. A published deliverable, before any meeting. Seconds, then two hours, then days — the work moves in one direction.
Find the right peers for the question.
Search a peer cohort by the question you’re actually asking — not by a static list. Pivot between five matching dimensions, read a percentile or a trajectory against cohort median, and pin a peer set to carry into Plan. Seconds, without IT.
- Peer Atlas snapshot · Benchmark sheet
- 5 matching dimensions · statistical, size, sector, region, Carnegie
- Always-current IPEDS
Project what happens next.
Move sliders on enrollment, tuition, aid, faculty mix, discount rate, and capex. Watch CFI, DSCR, and operating margin bend three to five years out — peer-median anchored. Every scenario arrives with a Board-readable narrative in your institution’s voice and your accreditor’s tone. Two hours, not six weeks.
- Scenario sheet · CFI · DSCR projections
- Board-ready narrative draft attached to every move
- SACSCOC · HLC · NEASC · MSCHE · NWCCU · WSCUC tone
Publish the deliverable you owe.
Compile a pinned scenario set and a pinned peer set into the document your institution actually owes — a Board pack, an accreditation submission, or a strategic plan doc. Every claim cites back to source IPEDS rows. A human signs every output.
- Board pack · PDF + editable source
- Accreditation submission · section drafts per standard
- Strategic plan doc · five-year, peer-calibrated
| INSTITUTION | CARNEGIE | REGION | FTE | CFI | MATCH |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Your institution | M2 | MidA | 3,200 | 2.14 | — |
| Allegheny-class A | M2 | MidA | 3,100 | 2.31 | 96% |
| Hamilton-class B | M2 | NE | 3,450 | 1.98 | 93% |
| Skidmore-class C | M2 | NE | 2,980 | 2.45 | 91% |
| Wooster-class D | M2 | GLk | 3,200 | 1.72 | 88% |
| Whitman-class E | M2 | PNW | 3,310 | 2.02 | 86% |
Westfield University’s Composite Financial Index of 0.9 reflects a declining but actively managed financial position. The primary reserve ratio of 0.22 remains above the generally accepted floor of 0.10, indicating that the institution retains operational resilience despite the CFI declining below the 1.0 threshold in FY2024 for the first time since FY2019.
The decline is attributable to a contraction in net tuition revenue (−7.2% in real terms) and increased reliance on draw from unrestricted reserves…
One decision, end to end. Pick one.
Five stages, one case. Each stage leaves a real artifact behind — the forecast, the brief, the pack, the vote, the record — and every artifact stays attached to the decision it served. The stages never change. Only the decision does.
Set next year’s rate — and defend it twelve months later.
Twelve years of your own trend, the peer picture, and the forecast inside its band — the model that won the backtest named.
The cabinet frames the rate and the effective term; Athena writes the question, the options, the stakes.
The pack the budget office used to spend three weeks on, written in the afternoon — motion first, ballot at the back.
Quorum confirmed, the ballot published, phones out — the count landing live, dissent by name.
One canonical record that still answers “why this number?” long after the meeting adjourns.
Brief, pack, ballot, vote, tally, record — every artifact here is the shipped product, not the roadmap.
Walk the tuition & fees decision — long-form, one case, five stages →
Your CFO’s CFI question needs different peers
than your Provost’s enrollment question.
A single static cohort gives you the wrong answer for every question. Athena rebuilds your peer group from scratch for each analysis — matching the five dimensions that actually matter to that decision.
Best for: financial benchmarking, accreditation prep.
Best for: cost structure benchmarking, staffing ratios, operating expense comparisons.
Best for: tuition pricing, discount rate, financial aid strategy.
Best for: enrollment competition, feeder school benchmarking, demographic exposure.
Best for: academic program comparison, accreditor-expected peer groups, strategic plan benchmarking.
The cliff is already affecting 40% of U.S. institutions.
High-school graduates in eighteen key states will fall fifteen to twenty-five percent by 2030. Your Provost is rebuilding the program portfolio against it; your CFO is stress-testing tuition revenue around it.
See how your peers are absorbing the shelf — before your Provost has to defend enrollment and your CFO has to defend tuition revenue at the next Board.
Run my free benchmark →Ten decisions run the institution.
Half of them return every year with the calendar. The other half arrive when the moment does. Each one gets the same treatment here: a case, a pack, a vote, a record.
- 01Tuition & fees
- 02Financial aid & discount rate
- 03Operating budget
- 04Salary & benefits pool
- 05Capital budget & debt service
- 06New programs
- 07Program sunsets
- 08Capital projects & bonds
- 09Reserves & investment policy
- 10Space & deferred maintenance
You decide. Academia Superiora carries every one, end to end.
Athena is already at every moment
of your planning year.
Higher education runs on a predictable calendar. So does Athena — ready with the right data at the right moment, before Provost, CFO, or President has to ask.
Your board will ask: “How does our CFI compare to our peers? Are we on the right side of the enrollment cliff?” Athena has the answers before the retreat begins.
What discount rate can we sustain? What does a 5% enrollment drop do to our operating model? Peer benchmarks tell you whether your assumptions are defensible or dangerous.
HLC Criteria 5.A, SACSCOC Standard 13 — financial sustainability sections require ratio trend analysis, peer context, and a management response narrative. Athena generates a complete draft from your IPEDS data.
Program mix decisions, market positioning, revenue diversification — every strategic choice needs peer context. Athena maps where your peers are going so your plan goes somewhere different.
The strategic plan, as a living document.
It updates when the market moves. Athena connects your sources, reads the peers, the news, and the regulation, wires the signals into alerts, and drafts the scenarios with you — so the plan is never more than a day behind the field.
See where your institution stands — in two hours.
A paginated PDF on your institution’s composite financial health — drafted by Athena, reviewed by a human, delivered to your inbox. One artifact, one delivery, no recurring cadence.
- PAGES
- Eight to twelve pages, paginated. Long enough to seat the six required sections; short enough that it does not drift into our paid strategic-plan tier.
- SECTIONS
- Cover and executive summary · CFI trend with peer percentile · Component ratios (Primary Reserve, Net Operating Revenues, Return on Net Assets, Net Income) · Peer-cohort detail · Three-year flat-enrollment projection · Methodology and source citations.
- SOURCES
- IPEDS federal surveys, on public record at NCES. No proprietary data, no survey panels, no opinions. Every numeric claim is cited back to a survey row you can open yourself.
- SAMPLE REDACTION
- Your institution’s row is real — name, IPEDS UNITID, ratios, percentile, projection. Peer institutions appear as “Peer A · 3,100 FTE · CFI 2.31”. Cohort medians and percentile math are real; peer identities unlock at the Advisor tier.
- DELIVERED BY
- Athena drafts from your IPEDS submissions; a human reviewer signs off before the PDF leaves our queue. Arrives at the email address you provide, within two hours of submission.
- HOW TO REQUEST
- Fill out the form below — institution name, IPEDS Unit ID (optional, speeds matching), email, role. No sales call. No card. One report per institution.
No spam. No sales call required. Benchmark data sourced from IPEDS federal surveys.
Three roles. Three artifacts.
One peer-anchored answer each.
And three more chiefs whose planning hinges on the same intelligence.