In recent years, Oberlin College finances have repeatedly surfaced in discussions across campus. Public tax filings show a growing endowment and significant institutional resources. At the same time, faculty report stagnating wages, and Opinions pieces in the Review have criticized the disparity between cost and quality of dining hall food (“What is the True Cost of Campus Dining?,” The Oberlin Review, June 11, 2021) and more broadly how the College is using student tuition dollars (“Does Oberlin Really Need Our Money?,” The Oberlin Review, Feb. 20, 2026). Meanwhile, the cost to attend Oberlin has increased by $10,000 between the 2021–22 and 2026–27 school years. 

This has given rise to a broader question: if Oberlin’s financial position is strengthening, why do students feel that there is not adequate investment in specific pockets of campus? 

Answering that question requires stepping back from individual headlines and looking at the College’s financial model as a whole: how money comes in, how it is allocated, and what pressures shape those decisions.

Publicly available financial documents, including nonprofit tax filings, provide insight into how Oberlin’s finances have evolved in recent years.

One of the most striking trends is the growth of the College’s endowment. Over roughly the past decade, it has increased from approximately $850 million to around $1.5 billion. This growth reflects a combination of strong market performance, major gifts, and changes in how much the College withdraws annually to support operations.

At the same time, Oberlin’s overall expenditures have also risen. A significant portion of the budget is devoted to salaries, compensation, and benefits, which constitute about one-third of the College’s expenditures. 

Revenue remains heavily tied to tuition and fees and is supplemented by endowment payouts, donations, and auxiliary income sources. Tax filings show that over 40 percent of revenue comes from tuition and fees. 

Oberlin’s financial debates are not happening in isolation. Across the U.S., small liberal arts colleges are grappling with finances, with many closing in the recent past. The Hechinger Report cited an estimate projecting that 442, or more than one-fourth, of 1,700 private, nonprofit four-year colleges and universities face the risk of closing or having to merge within the next decade. 

Enrollment levels are key to financing educational institutions. Recent reporting by Forbes suggests that a majority of financial pressures are driven by a growing mismatch between supply and demand in higher education: After decades of expansion based on expected rises in enrollment, colleges are now facing a shrinking pool of college-age students due to declining birth rates after the 2008 financial crisis. For Oberlin, tuition is a key factor, and fluctuations in enrollment affects the College’s finances from year to year.

“We’re … in this really interesting time where there’s a declining number of high school graduates nationally, and the competition for those students is really fierce,” President Carmen Twillie Ambar said. “We are a tuition-dependent institution, so that means the majority of our revenue comes from students choosing Oberlin. If we have strong enrollment, then we have great net tuition revenue, and things are better. If we don’t make our enrollment targets, then things are more challenging.”

Salaries, benefits, maintenance, utilities, and financial aid all place growing demands on institutional resources at Oberlin. The now-completed Sustainable Infrastructure Program, the construction of Woodland Hall, and expanded academic programs such as the Data Science, Business, Environmental Science, and Global Health majors launched within the past year also required additional investment.

President Ambar emphasized that Oberlin’s financial decisions are shaped by multiple competing priorities, including maintaining academic quality, investing in student experience, and ensuring that the institution remains viable decades into the future. 

“Quite frankly, the reason why OC is investing in those new majors is because they have a strong opportunity to help us build revenue,” she said. “In last year’s entering class, about 13 percent of students expressed an interest in the new majors. And in the group of students entering this year, 24 percent expressed interest in those majors. So this is really about trying to find a way for us to build the type of revenue that helps us invest more broadly across the institution.”

This article is the first in a series that aims to examine Oberlin’s finances in greater depth. Future reporting will explore more financial data, how the endowment functions and what restrictions govern its use, the financial reasoning behind major investments in housing and infrastructure, the process by which departments are funded and staffed, and the structure of agreements such as those involving the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association. Should readers have questions they would like to bring to our attention, they can email [email protected].