![]() “Management’s commitment to improve financial performance in the face of softened revenue growth prospects is a credit strength,” the report states. Moody’s also praised university officials' efforts to turn things around. The university brought in $130 million in revenue during fiscal year 2020, and the main Lawrenceville campus was recently appraised at $230 million, which is “well in excess of outstanding debt,” analysts wrote. So that’s going to increase future costs for the foreseeable future, which just puts a bigger and bigger toll on the institution.”īrown said the university is planning on "trimming the budget" but that it is not planning layoffs at this time.Ī few of the university’s attributes prevented Moody’s from lowering Rider’s credit rating even further. “They’re basically covering expenses right now on a line of credit. “It’s going to make it harder for them to borrow at rates that are going to be attractive,” Horn said. Moody’s recent downgrade will only make access to such credit more difficult, according to Horn. The university has budgeted debt repayment as part of normal operations, Brown said. That total jumped to $110 million after the university issued additional bonds in fiscal 2021. In fiscal year 2020, Rider reported $89 million in debt. The university has relied more heavily on credit to fund operations in recent years, the Moody’s report showed. Students and parents have greater access to consumer information today than they did a decade ago, and Rider’s uncertain future could influence prospective students not to consider or attend Rider. While university leaders work to recruit and retain more students, continued financial challenges could work against them, said Michael Horn, co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute, a nonprofit think tank. “The initiative changes Rider’s high tuition, high discount pricing model, which creates a significant hurdle for students and families who believe the sticker price immediately puts a Rider education financially out of reach,” Brown said in a February statement. University officials hope the new sticker price will draw families who would have otherwise ruled out Rider. Tuition for the 2021-22 academic year will cost $35,000. In an attempt to attract more students and lower its discount rate - which is the percentage of the full tuition price that is subsidized through institutional financial aid - Rider officials cut tuition by more than $10,000 starting this fall. What's more, net tuition revenue fell by 8 percent between fiscal year 2016 and fiscal year 2020, according to Moody’s. Rider’s enrollment has also declined considerably over the past decade, falling from a peak of 4,588 undergraduates in the 2009-10 academic year to 3,693 during the 2018-19 academic year, National Center for Education Statistics data showed. Rider lost about $27 million in room and board and auxiliary revenue over the past two fiscal years and spent $2 million in COVID-19 related costs last year, Brown said. The global pandemic has only exacerbated the existing challenges institutions like Rider have been facing, while also creating unforeseen new ones," Kristine Brown, a spokesperson for the university, said in an email.Įxpenses and revenue loss related to the COVID-19 pandemic have also put stress on the university's finances. "It’s widely known that the landscape of higher education is changing rapidly. Rider, a private university in Lawrenceville, N.J., has been squeezed by the same financial headaches that plague many private colleges and universities - namely falling enrollment, declining tuition and auxiliary revenue, and increasing debt. “While the university has articulated strategies to improve operations, a turnaround, if achievable, will take multiple years.” “The rating downgrade to Ba2 from Ba1 reflects Rider University’s continued very weak operating performance, reliance on a line of credit and recent increase in leverage, largely for working capital needs,” Moody's analysts wrote. Such ratings indicate to potential investors that investing in the university is risky because the university may be unable to pay back its debts. Rider’s rating fell from Ba1 - already a non-investment-grade or “junk” bond rating - to Ba2 earlier this month. Analysts at Moody’s Investors Service recently downgraded Rider University’s bond rating, signaling that the credit rating agency is increasingly concerned about the institution's precarious finances.
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