📰The Belltower Times (August 2025)

The Dins get Downgraded! Will this be the wake up call the administration needs?

Welcome to the Belltower Times — our flagship monthly newsletter

Announcements:

• Can you believe it is August already?

• Furman welcomes freshmen for fall orientation this month, starting August 21.

• Our first football game, against William and Mary, will take place on August 30.

• Our friends at the Alumni Free Speech Alliance decided to feature our first Paladin Report, exploring the “On Discourse” program, in their “Weekly Must Reads.” Check it out.

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Furman Trivia: Kickoff Edition

How much do you know about Furman? This section will test your knowledge. Our question this month is anticipation of the upcoming football season.

Question: Who was the opponent—and what was the final score—of Furman University’s very first intercollegiate football game, which also happened to be the first college football game ever played in South Carolina and the Deep South, in December 1889?

*Find the answer at the bottom of the newsletter!*

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Campus Dispatch: The Dins Get Downgraded

August has arrived, and students will soon return to Furman’s beautiful, well-maintained campus. But this year, the familiar rhythms of move-in and Convocation are playing out against a quieter crisis—one that strikes at the university’s financial future.

On July 22, Fitch Ratings revised Furman’s credit outlook from “Stable” to “Negative.” For those unfamiliar with bond ratings: think of them like an institutional credit score. A downgrade doesn’t mean bankruptcy—but it does signal rising financial risk. Lower ratings mean higher interest rates on future loans, shrinking the university’s flexibility to invest, expand, or even maintain current operations.

💸 What Fitch Is Really Saying

While Fitch praised Furman’s strong balance sheet—especially its backing from The Duke Endowment and Hollingsworth Funds—it also warned that “continued erosion in net tuition revenue, whether due to enrollment or tuition discounting pressure” could lead to a further downgrade.

The numbers don’t lie.

• Since 2019, Furman’s enrollment has dropped 15%

• Tuition revenue has fallen 19%—a $12.5 million hit

• Operating losses occurred 5 of the past 7 years, Furman is filling the gap by dipping more and more into the endowment

• University expenses have climbed 12%

  • Instructional costs (faculty salaries and academic programming), however, are up just 3% — which suggests a large amount of administrative bloat.

In plain English: Furman is living off of its past successes. It is enrolling fewer and fewer students while incurring more and more administrative costs. Plus, it’s not earning as much money per student as it needs to.

🏷️ The Real Cost of “Discounting”

Furman’s current model relies heavily on tuition discounting—scholarship aid that reduces the actual price paid by students. Today, the average discount rate is over 60%, meaning the university receives far less per student than the sticker price suggests.

That makes attracting—and retaining—students more important than ever.

But the yield isn’t there. Only 13.2% of admitted students are enrolling, a poor showing compared to peer institutions. And the incoming freshman class is shrinking again: 571 deposits this year, down from 621 last fall.

📉 Falling Behind, Even in a Tough Market

This isn’t just a Furman problem. Birthrates are falling. Fewer high school graduates are heading to college. And, as Jeff Selingo has noted, many upper-middle-class families who miss out on the Ivy League are skipping over schools like Furman and favoring public flagships with stronger brand recognition, better ROI, and generous merit aid.

Yet even in this tough environment, a variety of other Carolina schools are growing. Since 2019:

• Clemson is up 12.8%

• College of Charleston is up 11.5%

• Coastal Carolina is up 7.4%

• Wofford (Furman’s traditional rival): up 6%

• Erskine (a tiny liberal arts college): up a stunning 23.6%

Furman, meanwhile, is down 9.3%. We are falling behind. And it’s time we ask why.

🧠 Culture Is a Competitive Liability

We hear from families every month about why they’re reconsidering Furman—and the answers are telling. It’s not the academics. It’s not the campus. It’s the culture.

Too often, Furman comes across as brittle, ideological, and exclusionary to moderate or traditional families. One recent example: a family touring campus in July noted to us that two prominent displays featuring pride paraphernalia were the first things they saw when entering the Furman library. Their takeaway? Furman doesn’t model real inclusion—it performs it, on narrow ideological terms.

The rhetoric of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” also saturates Furman’s messaging. It’s a kind of soft radicalism: not imposed by force but baked into the culture. That might play well in certain circles, but in a politically and culturally divided nation, it narrows the university’s appeal. Families looking for a balanced, open-minded environment are tuning out.

🛠️ Strong Foundations, Strained Model

To be clear, Furman still has major advantages:

• A loyal alumni base

• A spectacular physical campus

• A strong faculty

• Long-term philanthropic support

The bones are good. But the current operating model is strained—and the financial trajectory is worsening.

Fitch’s report is a warning. If Furman doesn’t reverse these trends by 2026, its credit rating could be downgraded, increasing borrowing costs and constraining future budgets.

📊 What’s the Plan?

The university has publicly set an enrollment goal of 2,800 students and freshman classes of 700 by the end of the decade. But there’s been little transparency about how it plans to get there.

If growth is the goal, culture can’t be an afterthought. Furman must become a place where:

• Civil disagreement is welcomed, not policed

• Viewpoint diversity is real, not rhetorical

• Students of faith, conservatives, moderates, and independents can speak freely in class and in public

This isn’t about dragging Furman backwards. It’s about broadening the tent. No university can grow—financially or intellectually—if half the country feels unwelcome on day one.

🧭 A Crossroads, and a Choice

Furman stands at a crossroads. It can either confront hard truths about its enrollment, budget, and campus culture—or double down on the same strategies that produced a negative credit outlook.

Do President Davis and her team understand what’s at stake? The alumni, parents, and students who love this university deserve clarity:

• What is the plan to rebuild enrollment?

• How will Furman reduce its reliance on unsustainable tuition discounting?

• Will the administration listen to the growing chorus of families calling for change—not just slogans?

A bond rating is more than a number. It’s a sign of how the market views Furman’s future. And unless the university charts a new path, that future is more uncertain than ever.

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CLPs of the Month:

Furman students must attend 32 Cultural Life Programs (CLPs) to graduate. CLPs are university-approved events meant to “enrich” and “build community.”

But what counts as “cultural enrichment” these days?

Starting next month, we’ll highlight the most curious, compelling, and downright bizarre CLPs of the Month.

Stay tuned. It’s going to be interesting!

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Trivia Answer:

Wofford College; Furman lost 5–1 on December 14, 1889, playing under a rough-and-tumble set of rugby-style rules that the teams agreed on just minutes before kickoff.