Empty College Dorms Pose Payback Dilemma for Bond Issuers

  • Refunding housing fees cuts revenue backing bond debt
  • S&P Global Ratings cut its private student housing outlook
The Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts in March 23.Photographer: Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

Students and professors at universities aren’t the only ones wondering when schools will re-open. Bondholders and stockholders also have a vested interest in getting them back on campus.

As colleges across the country send students home and transition to online learning amid the coronavirus pandemic, managers of student housing that rely on dorm-room revenue are rushing to figure out whether or not students can terminate their leases and how to pay back bondholders financing those projects.