Fountain Valley School of Colorado is burning the cushion faster than the 4.2-year buffer suggests. Expenses are outpacing revenue 4.3% vs -11.7% per year over three years, and the latest operating margin is -18.9% on a 78% tuition-dependent revenue mix. Covering the deficit at today's rate, it would take more than a decade to exhaust reserves — the full budget, by contrast, is covered for about 4.2 years if every revenue line stopped. The board conversation here is the recovery plan for the residential model and the timeline to break-even. NACUBO Composite Financial Index: 3.1 / 10, adequate — monitor.
Fountain Valley School of Colorado reported $17.1M in revenue against $20.3M in expenses in fiscal year 2023, the most recent filing on record. Net assets stood at $84.9M — about 4.18x annual operating expense.
Operating margin landed at -18.9%, with 78.0% of revenue coming from tuition. Among same-size peers, that puts Fountain Valley School of Colorado at the p10 on operating margin.
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Why “revenue scale” and not “endowment per student”: independent-school 990s don’t carry per-school enrollment, and NCES PSS coverage is partial, so we cannot divide endowment by a verified student count for every school. The bar above is each school’s latest reported total revenue. True endowment-per-student is scheduled for v1.1+ once Schedule D Part V parsing lands.
Peers are scored by similarity along three equal-weighted dimensions: size cohort (Form 990 employee count + max-revenue tier, a proxy for student enrollment, which the 990 does not carry), geographic region (eight-region grouping), and association overlap (NAIS, NBOA, regional councils). We rank the top 20 nearest peers and chart the first 12 by latest reported revenue. Values are the school’s most recently filed total revenue on IRS Form 990.