Research workspace › Financial health
sterling.
Executive release
01 / EXECUTIVE SUMMARY & SOURCE-AWARE METHODOLOGY
INSTITUTIONAL INTELLIGENCE · EXECUTIVE BRIEFING

Sterling Institutional Health & Peer Benchmark Suite

Nelson University & seven peers · 2018–2024 primary / 2025 conditional.

Executive release · October 21, 2026
Comparison
2018—20247 years
Trend window
Select institutions to compare
8 of 8 institutions selected
Nelson · auditedUniversity-only financial column

Southwestern Assemblies of God University and Affiliates (historical name). Core revenue and expense figures isolate the university. Endowment uses a separately identified consolidated-group note.

Peers · reported filingsComparable labels, different bases

Form 990/public financials retain source-defined gifts and investment amounts. This is a reported-total health comparison, not a normalized operating-only ranking. Missing reports remain gaps.

Prices · separate from revenueA published charge is not net income

Annual UG charges and per-credit part-time/overload references are published price references, not actual student realizations or institutional earnings. Source confidence, academic year and population remain explicit.

02 Multi-institution deep-dive

Inspect one university's financial trajectory and enrollment mix. Source definitions remain explicit.

2018–2024 · INDEPENDENT VIEW

All eight institutions remain available here. Fixed 2018–2024 history, independent of global comparison selections and the optional 2025 extension.

Institution financial trajectory

Total revenue · expenses · fiscal-end year · USD millions

Reported surplus / deficit

Reported total revenue minus expenses · USD millions

Calculated · not normalized

Historical financial & endowment source trail

USD millions; hover for exact nominal USD. Each reported figure retains its source scope.

Fiscal end / availabilityRevenue
USD M		Expenses
USD M		Surplus
USD M		Margin
%		Ending endowment
USD M		Sources / scope

Enrollment by type · 2018–2024

Peer measures: Undergraduate, Graduate/Doctoral, Online, Other. Online may overlap degree levels; no additive partition is inferred.

Separate from financial FY

Fall censusUndergraduateGraduate/DoctoralOnlineOtherSource / definition
NELSON ONLY · INTERNAL LEADERSHIP CONTEXT · 5 PERIODS

Eight principal registration channels

Eight principal undergraduate delivery/affiliate channels · source-labeled2022–2026 periods. The five additional certification/graduate/doctoral rows remain in the source controls and detail table; no original row is discarded. Fall/spring sums are not unique annual students.

Internal source rows, terms & reconciliation
Source period / categoryFirst source termSecond source termReported paired totalSource-cell check / status
Workbook anomalies & out-of-window observations

These five internal source periods are deliberately independent of the 2018–2025 financial filter. Internal campus/affiliate, program and term definitions differ from IPEDS. No term-summed total or future-labeled observation fills an unavailable fall census.

03 Peer comparison view

Side-by-side revenue, expenses, reported surplus, endowment and annual published charges. Global filters control this comparison.

PRIMARY FOCUS

Total revenue vs. total expenses

Solid = revenue · dashed = expenses · fiscal-end year · USD millions

Hover for exact USD. School legend toggles both lines.

Reported-total surplus / deficit

Reported-total proxy: revenue − expenses

Calculated
Includes source-defined gifts and investment items. Not a uniformly audited operating-only comparison.

Selected fiscal-year comparison

Financials and endowments: USD millions · published annual charges: exact USD, not realized student costs

Institution / FYRevenue
USD M		Expenses
USD M		Surplus
USD M		Ending endowment
USD M		Annual UG charge
Exact USD		Basis / availability

Endowments & secondary metrics

Additional institutional resilience context—not the main operating story.

SECONDARY SUMMARY

Contributions are dollars, not donor counts. Unknown donors/concentration are not estimated. Nelson’s endowment is a separately identified consolidated-group note; its core financials use the university-only column. Transfers and restatements can affect annual balances.

04 Undergraduate enrollment dynamics & correlation

Undergraduate drivers are explicit. Graduate and doctoral activity is never included in UG headcount.

FALL CENSUS · NOT FTE

Fall undergraduate headcount & annual change

LEFT axis / BARS: UG headcount (students) · RIGHT axis / DASHED LINES: YoY change (%)

Standardized IPEDS series. Unknown censuses are gaps, not zero. The first selected year has no in-range YoY comparison.

Peer enrollment mix · four measures

Latest available census in the selected period

Four labels · source-qualified
Undergraduate · Graduate/Doctoral · Online · Other. Degree-level counts use the primary fall census. Online is an overlapping delivery mode, not a third degree level; grouped measures must not be summed. Unsupported Online or Other values remain N/A. Nelson's eight detailed source channels are in Section02.
View all fall censuses & enrollment-type sources
Fall yearInstitutionUndergraduateGraduate/DoctoralOnlineOtherYoY UGSource

Leadership question: enrollment growth or tuition pricing?

Paired observed years · enrollment / published charges vs. reported surplus · descriptive, not causal

No driver attribution inferred
InstitutionUG vs. surplus
Level r / n		UG change vs. surplus change
Δ r / n		Annual charge vs. surplus
Level r / n		Charge change vs. surplus change
Δ r / n

05 Financial audit trail & tuition reference

Institutional financial totals and source-qualified published student prices remain separate.

SOURCE-TRACEABLE
THE COST DISTINCTION

Financial totals. Published price references.

Form 990 reports institutional revenue—not an average student bill. Published annual charges and standard per-credit rates are separately dated student-price references, not financial revenue.

Financial & tuition source trail

Choose a reporting basis. Financial totals use USD millions; student prices use exact USD.

Institutional reported totalsPeers: Form 990 / source-linked reported figures. Nelson: university-only audit column. Not normalized operating-only.
Reported financial totals and ending endowment balances, in USD millions. Missing filings are not zeros.
Fiscal year / endInstitution / filing statusTotal revenue
USD millions		Total expenses
USD millions		Reported surplus / deficit
USD millions		Ending endowment balance
USD millions		Financial source & basis
Surplus = reported revenue − expenses. Source-defined gifts/investment amounts are retained. Missing financial reports are labeled Filing Pending / Not Available and are never plotted or exported as zero. The label concerns availability, not a legal filing deadline.
Uploaded enrollment mix reference · separate from primary IPEDS
Institution / fallUndergraduateGraduate/DoctoralOnlineOtherSupplied confidence / source

Academic-year start identifies the fall census; academic-year end identifies the price label. This secondary workbook does not overwrite the primary IPEDS trend. Online participation overlaps attendance categories and is not added as a residual.

New workbook provenance, coverage & reconciliation notes

Raw-workbook cross-reference & source exceptions

All eight institutions · 2018–2024 primary / 2025 extension · exact nominal USD and source cells

View numeric differences and raw-source exceptions
Institution / FY / metricRaw workbook
USD / exact ratio		Source snapshot
USD / exact ratio		Difference
USD / exact ratio		Raw cells / source qualification

Sources, scope & definitions

Financial period, enrollment census, and tuition price are separate dimensions.

Source-aware expanded comparison. Eight active institutions (Nelson plus seven peers) and 2018–2025. Workbook Form 990 years are mapped to actual fiscal-end years. Audited university-only core totals, reported filing data and published price references are separately labeled. Missing is not zero.

Timeline & missing reports

2018–2024 is the primary historical window; gaps remain for unavailable school/year reports, including Valley Forge after 2022. 2025 is optional and coverage-limited: sourced actual figures remain reported, while absent core/audit reports are explicitly unavailable or preliminary coverage. “Filing Pending / Not Available” describes this dataset’s availability, not an assertion of a missed filing deadline. Valley Forge’s public register identifies a religious-organization filing exemption.

Operating health

Reported-total margin proxy = (revenue − expenses) ÷ revenue × 100. Surplus proxy = revenue − expenses. These include source-defined gifts and investment amounts and are not uniformly operating-only. Nelson uses the university-only audit column; peer core figures preserve Form 990/workbook bases. Fiscal ends differ; no calendarization or tuition-scholarship normalization is claimed. Peer medians exclude Nelson, show nonmissing coverage, and are descriptive—not a ranking.

Published price references

Annual undergraduate charges and undergraduate/graduate per-credit rates retain their academic year, source confidence and required-fee treatment. These are published prices, not a realized student bill or institutional profit. No revenue/headcount division or inferred credit load produces a student price.

Enrollment & correlation

Primary charts use IPEDS EF: EFALEVEL 2 undergraduate; 12 graduate/postbaccalaureate (including doctoral); 1 total. Fall credit-enrolled headcount, not FTE or annual unduplicated. No doctoral double-counting. Separate operational disclosures retain their explicit census dates and definitions and do not fill the standardized trend. The selected-period trend is unavailable if either selected endpoint is absent; any latest available trend shows its actual years. YoY requires adjacent available in-range years. Pearson r uses at least three within-school paired same-labeled fall/FY years; timing differs, institution revenue covers more than UG instruction, and correlation does not imply causation.

Endowment

Secondary only. Schedule D current-year column or directly sourced audit note; scope is shown. Contributions are monetary amounts, not unique donors. No donor concentration is inferred. Nelson is consolidated-group endowment, separately from university-only core revenue.

School/year source register

FY / fallInstitutionFinancial sourceEnrollmentPrice

Research gaps & conflicts

Underlying source snapshot October 3, 2026; Valley Forge availability rechecked October 6, 2026. Active peer set revised October 6, 2026; the remaining institutions’ financial values and source dates are unchanged. Browser-imported updates are unverified local overrides and retain their own source descriptions.

Update the expanded dataset

Verified additions recalculate the entire dashboard.

Download the populated JSON, edit verified values, then import the complete file. Exactly 64 records: the eight active schools × 2018–2025. Use dollars—not millions—and null for unknown.

The school IDs are fixed. Revenue/expense sources, enrollment population/source definitions and price academic years must remain traceable. Do not relabel a revenue/headcount ratio as a directly disclosed student price. Hope International is excluded from the active cohort and cannot be reintroduced by data imports. Older Draft4/v4/v3/v2 local dataset overrides are not automatically reapplied; a prior override can be downloaded for review. The executive edition has no active team review or notes workflow. Existing browser data from earlier editions is not deleted.

Changes stay in this browser when storage is supported. Export your edits to share. Restoring source data affects only the active financial override.