Quote:Because universities rely on students to help pay back debts, they’re counting on student enrollment numbers to stay steady in coming years.

Funding sources from the state government are limited, said Jeannie Reifsnyder, senior associate vice president for finance and administration at Kent State University.

“The only way to try to raise our revenue streams for operating costs and debt payment is through enrollment,” Reifsnyder said.

Student enrollments haven’t been a problem for the state’s larger universities — such as Cincinnati, Ohio University, Miami and Ohio State, where enrollment numbers have continued to climb.

But overall, some of the state’s public universities are showing signs of a struggle to lure students into classrooms. The number of students who attended a four-year public college dropped from 338,300 students in 2010 to 331,156 students in 2013, according to Ohio Board of Regents.

“I wouldn’t make the assumption that enrollments will keep growing and growing,” Vedder said. “I would be ultra cautious about borrowing huge sums for huge constructions. I think we’re getting carried away.”

Kent State’s enrollment has tapered off from 42,513 students in fall 2012 to 41,214 last fall.“

We’ve obviously been focusing on outside Ohio as well as inside in order to try to grow that enrollment,” Reifsnyder said. “The other thing we have been focused on is the retention of our students as well.”

https://www.daytondailynews.com/news/deb...qmdLAMzOI/

Some of you would be pretty surprised as to who is doing well and who is not. Ohio State and Cincinnati by themselves combine for over 50 percent of the 6.5 billion dollar university debt in Ohio.

University Debt in 2014:

Ohio St. $2,605,528,000
Cincinnati $1,236,000,000
Akron $487,101,792
Bowling Green $147,100,000

Then you have Ohio which restructured its bonds into a credit line to tap into for future university renovations. Now they aren't spending money on a new stadium (at least yet) but scheduled all the building replacement out by retirement date.

Other universities are getting more creative with how they borrow.

Quote:Rather than pay to borrow new money every year or two, Ohio University this budget year turned to investors to borrow $250 million over 100 years, said Beth Green, OU’s director of debt management.

By borrowing $250 million now, the university estimates it will be able to recycle it and invest a total $1.3 billion before the bill is due in year 2115.

Almost like a line of credit, the university will lend portions of the $250 million for a project, repay it and spend it again before the debt expires 100 years from now, Green said.

“We realized that we could lock in an extremely attractive interest rate over the next 100 years,” Green said. “The idea is we want to put a significant dent in our deferred maintenance backlog so we don’t become at a point where we are today in the future.”