EDUCATION FACILITIES · CHARTER SCHOOL FINANCE
Charter School Feasibility Study Consultants
Enrollment demand, per-pupil revenue, authorizer standing and coverage — the four questions every charter facility lender asks, answered on evidence.
Who relies on itCDFIs · banks · bond investors
Core driverEnrollment and per-pupil revenue
Credit riskAuthorizer standing & charter term
Facility usesAcquisition · new build · expansion
Standard delivery10–15 business days
Fee basisFixed, never contingent
A charter school is an enrollment credit
Charter facility debt is repaid almost entirely out of per-pupil revenue, which means the credit rises and falls on one number: how many students actually enroll and stay. Everything a lender asks about — the waitlist, the demographics, the competing schools, the academic results, the charter renewal history — is an attempt to test the durability of that single line.
The analysis therefore has to be built from the bottom up. Enrollment projections by grade band and year, tested against the school's own historical yield from applications to enrolled students, its attrition by grade, the population of school-age children in the catchment, and the competitive set of district, charter, magnet and private options families are actually choosing between.
What a charter facility file must establish
- Demand — applications, waitlist and yield history, catchment demographics, competitive schools and their capacity.
- Revenue — the state's per-pupil funding formula, federal and grant sources, and how each responds to an enrollment miss.
- Authorizer standing — charter term, renewal history, academic and compliance record, and any conditions on the charter.
- Facility fit — capacity against the enrollment ramp, cost basis, and occupancy expense per pupil against peers.
- Coverage — projections through the ramp, stressed for an enrollment shortfall and for a funding-formula change.
Where these files get returned
The most common failure is an enrollment ramp that is asserted rather than derived. A school projecting a jump from three hundred to seven hundred students over four years has to show where those students come from, grade by grade, out of a catchment whose child population and school choices are documented — and has to reconcile that ramp with its own historical yield and attrition.
The second most common is a revenue line that ignores timing. Per-pupil funding follows count dates and state disbursement schedules; a school that enrolls in August and is funded on an October count with payments arriving later has a working-capital problem the pro forma has to show. The third is an occupancy cost that looks fine in dollars and is an outlier as a share of per-pupil revenue against peer schools — lenders benchmark that ratio, so the study should too.
Built for the lender's committee
We work with CDFIs, banks, credit enhancement programs and bond underwriters, and the report is written for a credit committee: findings first, evidence attached, assumptions listed where they can be checked and changed. The financial model is fully linked with no hard-coded results, so the underwriter can run their own enrollment stress rather than asking us for another version.
Fees are fixed and quoted in advance and are never contingent on the finding. If the enrollment case does not support the facility as scoped, the report says so and identifies the size, phasing or lease structure at which it would — which is generally more useful to a school's board than a study that tells them what they hoped to hear.
Frequently asked questions
Who orders a charter school feasibility study?
Usually the lender or the school's board ahead of a facility financing — CDFIs, banks, credit enhancement programs and bond underwriters all rely on independent enrollment and coverage analysis before committing to a facility loan.
How far out should enrollment be projected?
Through the ramp to stabilised enrollment and across the term of the debt, with the stabilised year identified explicitly. Lenders want to see both the ramp risk and the steady-state coverage.
Does the authorizer relationship affect the credit?
Materially. Charter term, renewal history and any compliance conditions bear directly on the durability of the revenue stream, so they are analysed as credit factors, not background.
What happens if the school misses its enrollment target?
That is exactly what the stress case is for. The study shows the enrollment level at which coverage breaks and what the school's options are at that point — a number a board should know before it signs, not after.
Can you work from a school that has not opened yet?
Yes, though a start-up file is harder and the evidence has to come from the catchment, the founding team's track record and comparable schools rather than the school's own history. We will tell you honestly how much weight the analysis can carry.
Do you evaluate academic quality?
We analyse published academic results as a credit factor because authorizers and families respond to them. We do not conduct academic program evaluation — that is a different discipline.
Wert-Berater, Inc. · 1968 South Coast Hwy, Ste 2382, Laguna Beach, CA 92651 · 111 Town Square Pl Ste 1238 PMB 657834, Jersey City, NJ 07310 · 539 W. Commerce St #8486, Dallas, TX 75208 · 66 W Flagler Street, Suite 900, PMB 12704, Miami, FL 33130 · +1 310-857-2443 ext. 800 ·
Site Map ·
Privacy