Drexel’s Debt Among Highest in the Country

Drexel’s paid a high price for all its rapid growth. $467 million, to be specific. To fund its new student center and science center biowall–the tallest in the world–Drexel has primarily been a borrower. According to a New York Times report on schools in the red (Harvard is six billion dollars in debt; Miami of Ohio owes $444 million), Drexel president John Fry vows to even up the school’s balance sheet by leasing campus land to private developers and by entering partnerships with other institutions, like last year’s merger with Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences. With universities eager to pay off their total debt of $205 billion (often by charging a lot, like Drexel) it’s unlikely that total student debt, at more than one trillion dollars, is likely to decline anytime soon. [New York Times]