Yale Proves No Bulwark for Town Stung by Bond-Rating Downgrades
- New Haven contending with chronic deficits, state aid cuts
- Schools are an economic boon, but property is tax exempt
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In New Haven, Connecticut, vast swathes of property are owned by Yale University, the Ivy League school that’s amassed a more than $27 billion endowment and charges tuition of more than $50,000 a year.
But the elite college hasn’t been a tax-collection boon for the city, where more than a quarter of the 130,000 residents live in poverty, because most of the university’s property is tax exempt. New Haven has been reliant instead on diminishing aid from its cash-strapped state and dogged by chronic budget deficits, prodding S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings to downgrade the city’s bonds last month.