Posted on 12/30/2012 4:04:17 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The Student Loan Bubble is bad, but interestingly enough, as this New York Times article points out, the loan problem extends all the way up the ladder to the institutions of higher education who never seem to have enough money.
Remember that our financial experts come out of a system that is this deep underwater and they have a heavy investment is bailing it out.
Overall debt levels more than doubled from 2000 to 2011 at the more than 500 institutions rated by Moody’s, according to inflation-adjusted data compiled for The New York Times by the credit rating agency. In the same time, the amount of cash, pledged gifts and investments that colleges maintain declined more than 40 percent relative to the amount they owe.
While Harvard is the wealthiest university in the country, it also has $6 billion in debt, the most of any private college, the data compiled by Moody’s shows.
At the Juilliard School, which completed a major renovation a few years ago, debt climbed to $195 million last year, from $6 million in inflation-adjusted dollars in 2002. At Miami University, a public institution in Ohio that is overhauling its dormitories and student union, debt rose to $326 million in 2011, from $66 million in 2002, and at New York University, which has embarked on an ambitious expansion, debt was $2.8 billion in 2011, up from $1.2 billion in 2002, according to the Moody’s data.
The pile of debt — $205 billion outstanding in 2011 at the colleges rated by Moody’s — comes at a time of increasing uncertainty in academia. After years of robust growth, enrollment is flat or declining at many institutions, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest. With outstanding student debt exceeding $1 trillion, students and their parents are questioning the cost and value of college. And online courses threaten to upend the traditional collegiate experience and payment model.
Student debt turns out to be only 5 times as high as the accumulated college debt, and that’s only at the colleges rated at Moody’s. What would happen if we added up the entire pile of debt for all institutions of higher education in the country? Somehow I think we would arrive at some very scary numbers.
The system is broken and spending its way deeper into debt. Tuition costs have risen dramatically and hardly made a dent in the tremendous piles of debt accumulated over the last decade.
It would seem as if Academia’s brokenness amplifies the brokenness of its graduates. It acts as a predictor for the entire broken system. Academia is a deadbeat metaphor turning out deadbeat students in a deadbeat nation.
Harvard borrowed $1.5 billion to pay its bills rather than selling off assets at a sharp discount. Its interest expense more than doubled from fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2011, to nearly $300 million.
“The financial crisis has acted like a tidal wave that, as it receded, exposed certain vulnerabilities with a new clarity,” Harvard officials said in the November annual report.
That’s a fancy way of saying, “We’re morons.”
What is the source of all this debt?
I hypothesize it is the “grow or die” philosophy of so many colleges. I have yet to be on a campus that isn’t building, have some recently completed building, or have a new building about to start.
Colleges aren’t businesses (in the traditional sense). Businesses must grow. Colleges can stay the same size and still execute their mission: educate.
huh?
Harvard has an endowment of $32 billion!
One of the beast things that could happen to America would be if the Harvard schools of Business and Law were burned to the ground.
>>huh?
Harvard has an endowment of $32 billion!<<
You usually can’t use endowments to pay for expenses. They are for special projects and scholarships.
Also, a lot of the debt they are talking about is long-term debt. You don’t pay for that with endowments, but out of the general operating fund.
Morons??? Yes
These same morons teach students economics, They taught the Congress critters economics when they went to school there.
In debt up to their ass like our country and they still teach economics, Envirowhackism, Socialism, Marxism.
They hire faculty that are morons.More faculty than they need teaching subjects no one needs to learn.
Yu wonder why our country is in the shape it’s in? Colleges that teach Homosexuality is the new sexual norm, Colleges that teach that Good does not exist. Colleges that teach liberalism as their religion. They learn it in these sh*t colleges and they spread it to the Government. America’s colleges are a cancer that need a cure fast.
They always thought they were going to be in charge after it happened.
It's hard to be in charge when you're dead.
A $32 billion dollar endowment would probably only generate about $2 billion in revenue, on a good year.
I smell a plan to scam taxpayers.
How much money do you think BO and MO have given back to their schools? How much money do you think other diversity-entrants of Harvard and other Ivies give back to the schools that let them in over more qualified students?
So a $6 billion debt would take a few years. Hardly a crisis, if changes are made to spending levels.
The headline says Harvard IS $6 billion in debt, leading some people to believe Harvard is broke and owes $6 billion.
Absolutely. Cut back on the spending, over ten years, and the debt disappears.
But you would need real conservatives to make that happen. Good luck finding one on a college campus.
>>How much money do you think BO and MO have given back to their schools? How much money do you think other diversity-entrants of Harvard and other Ivies give back to the schools that let them in over more qualified students?<<
The answer to the first is: just enough to have things named after them.
The answer to the second is: TONS for the ones who make it. They are usually the ones who give the most.
Some of these colleges building student union buildings at costs of 15-30 million and how long does it take to recoup that cost, Just to attract students to come to their college?..
May I be the first to say I think this is false? Most colleges, especially Harvard have huge endowments and probably have secreted investment and off shore accounts as well. I'm gonna guess that this was a planted story to take the heat off them when Obama starts redistributing incomes, trusts and savings.
Harvard can pay that debt with its endowment
What is your response to Post # 5 above?
Agenda driven writing ... 6B debt, 32B assets. Debt isn't bad if you can afford it and it depends what the debt is. Colleges are non-profits generally. The color of money comes into play as well to keep their non-profit status. Not defending Harvard but this article lacks additional facts.
Is there a way to know which institutions have what debt? Like, looking up Rice Univeraity vs UT.
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