Charter School Feasibility Study in Utah

Utah schools: a 504-led record with an above-average footprint

Utah presents a visible school record in SBA's files. From FY2017 to FY2026 the state logged 27 loans worth $22.8 million, ranking 9 of 50 for the class. The location quotient is 1.54x, so schools claim a clearly larger part of Utah's lending than of the country's, although the class is still 22 of 39 within the state, a mid-table placement. Most charter operators are nonprofits and fall outside SBA lending, so the record reflects for-profit and operating-company borrowers.

The loans themselves

Here the program mix is the story. The 504 program supplies 18 of the 27 loans, leaving 9 for 7(a), which points to real estate: building or buying a school facility rather than funding working capital. The median loan is $650,000, which is 0.95x the national class median, while approvals in the central band span $332,500 to $1.0 million. Franchising reaches 11.1% of loans. The county table shows Summit with 8, Utah and Washington with 6 each, Salt Lake with 4, Davis with 2 and Weber with 1.

Unprinted outcome rates

The cohort behind the cancelled share and the one behind the charged-off share are both too small for this cell. No percentage appears, and none should be assumed to be nil. A lender wanting evidence of performance can look at the national pages for schools, which have larger cohorts.

What a Utah school feasibility study has to test

Start with the student base: the school-age population the facility can draw on, the programs it will offer, and the other options families have. Test the funding or tuition per pupil and the staffing cost, then show a break-even enrollment. For a building loan of the size seen here, the study should compare construction or purchase cost with a ticket near $650,000, explain any shortfall, and test debt service coverage against a year with low enrollment. A valuer will treat the property as a single-use building and ask what else it could house if the school closed.

Because charter schools sit in the same industry code as private schools, the loans above cover both and cannot be sorted by governance.