Jon Baker posted the following to the Antioch College Alumni & Community Facebook group.
It’s not surprising that there are a wide variety of opinions about Antioch’s current situation and what to do about it. We know that if you put ten Antiochians in a room and ask them a single question you will get 47 different answers. If only there was some clear, unbiased, independent assessment of the College.
Well, I think there is, it’s the auditors’ report. Every year the College has its finances audited. The auditors are required by government, professional and ethical standards to be fair, unbiased and independent. The June 30, 2025 audit report (the most recent) is publically available and offers some telling insights into Antioch’s financial situation.
The most troubling is the auditors questioning whether Antioch is “a going concern.” They said:
“The College relies on significant contributions to pay operating expenses. This reliance along with the significant endowment loans, unfunded gift annuity obligations, callable bonds, and continuing significant decreases in net assets, create uncertainty about the College’s ability to continue as a going concern.”
I took a deep dive into the auditors’ report to try and understand each of these issues. Here’s what I found:
Contributions Paying Operating Expenses – The total functional expenses of the College last year were $11 million. The total revenue was just under $8 million. As a result, the College ran another year at a deficit. There were $4.6 million of gifts, pledges and bequests that year, making up 57% of the annual revenue and paying for 42% of the College’s expenses. Net student income for 2025 only covered 11% of the expenses.
To put the amount of gifts in perspective, it’s about the same as the College paid in wages and salaries for the year. Relying on alumni donations to provide such a large portion of the College’s operating income is what concerned the auditors, and should be of concern to us.
One other note – the College had to write off $591,226 in conditional pledges that were never received. There is no mention why these donors backed out.
Unfunded Gift Annuities – The College inherited 34 gift annuity contracts for which it is obligated to make periodic payments to the respective annuitant. These annuities are contracts between a donor and the College in which the donor makes a gift and the College assumes a legal obligation to provide the beneficiary with a fixed amount of income on a regular basis. Currently the College is paying approximately $55,000 annually to the respective annuitants. The estimated future liability for annuity contract payments is $247,762.
The backing for these gift annuities is financial investments managed by Fifth Third Institutional Services. These investments have a zero balance as of June 30, 2025. The College is responsible for continuing to pay the annuitants under the contract even if there are no remaining investment assets. How this would happen is yet another great concern.
Callable Bonds – At June 30, 2025 and 2024, the College had debt of $1,600,000 and $1,675,000 in the form of bonds, payable at an interest rate of 5% per year. The term of each bond is ten years but once a bond has been outstanding for at least three years the bond holder can redeem the principal amount of that bond, plus accrued interest. Antioch has a Trust Indenture with the Huntington National Bank which issued the bonds. The security for the bonds is a mortgage on the College. The bank can foreclose on the collateral in the event of any default.
The annual 5% payment on one of these bonds is $80,000. If the College defaults on a payment, or if it cannot pay a bond holder who wants to redeem the bond the bank can foreclose.
Net Assets – The College lists its net assets two ways – with donor restrictions and without. The unrestricted assets are what the College can use for normal operating expenses without concern if donors’ wishes are respected. Net assets with restrictions are those whose use has been limited by donors for certain purposes, like scholarships or academic programs, or for a specific time period. Other restrictions may require assets to be maintained by the College in perpetuity.
Assets with restrictions have remained relatively stable over the last three years, approximately $28 million. Assets without restrictions, however, have dropped in this time period from $10,158,550 to $5,597,163. Some of this can be attributed to the College’s sale of buildings and land, but the drop is significant enough (55%) to raise the auditors’ concerns.
The Endowment Loans – Of all these concerns Antioch’s use of the endowment funds to pay operating costs is the most telling and most discussed. It requires a topic of its own and will be covered in the next chapter of Antioch by the Numbers, #6, – Borrowing from the Piggy Bank.
