Reply to What is the real W&M experience/vibe?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "What is the real W&M experience/vibe?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]But how is it compared to other universities especially public flagships? AA is not exactly all that amazing if all the other universities have AAA+[/quote]

S&P does not have AAA+.  AA is second to AAA.  "An obligor rated 'AA' has very strong capacity to meet its financial commitments. It differs from the highest-rated obligors only to a small degree."  https://www.standardandpoors.com/en_US/web/guest/article/-/view/sourceId/504352.   I think there were only 5 or so AAA public universities not too long ago.  Moody's is the other big rating agency in higher ed.  It is thought they are somewhat favored because their ratings are more lenient.  Even high prestige universities have been showing some strain by taking on debt.  See story including Northwestern and Washington University.  https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-chasing-prestige-is-starting-to-strain-some-elite-institutions/?cid2=gen_login_refresh&cid=gen_sign_in#:~:text=At%20least%20six%20institutions%20held,financial%20positions%20graded%20by%20Moody's.

Public universities in Virginia generally use the state to issue bonds.  Virginia is still a AAA rated state.

The Covid situation is threatening even to institutions that seemed very solid before the pandemic.  When UVA hospital had elective procedures suspended, it went from a profitable hospital to one that lost $80M a month and furloughed 600 workers.  Even rich schools like Harvard have huge debts to fund its Allston campus expansion.  If the funding mechanism for that is broken (huge Federal government deficits cause decreases in federal R&D funding, foreign students are not attending, etc.) the system breaks down.

The reason why the W&M leadership (three people) took pay cuts for the duration of the year is because other schools have been doing it (UVA had already done it).  These schools are doing it because they will all have shortfalls if the back to school model doesn't work and they will not have expected room and board revenues.  They would then need to furlough, so the leadership pay cuts are in preparation for that possibility.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics