DCF Valuation of Nonprofit Universities

Abstract

We conduct the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) valuation of two nonprofit organizations: Syracuse University and Indiana University. We transform nonprofits to for-profits by converting nonprofit social benefit to net earnings and by adopting for-profit cost of equity and tax rate. These adjustments attempt to capture considerable hidden value to equityholders. We find that in the best scenario, the net worth (market value of equity) could be about 2 times the book equity for both universities in June 2017.