Harvard’s Debt Load Puts Strain on the University, Halts Projects

Today’s Boston Globe details the money woes that Harvard University has faced since the economic meltdown, and the way those woes have affected the university’s building programs.

The nation’s wealthiest university doubled its debt load over the last  three years, to $6-billion. It spent $204-million to pay down its debt in fiscal 2009, or 40 percent more than the prior year — money that deans would rather have spent on projects and programs. And Harvard is now spending a larger slice of its $3.8-billion operating budget on debt service than its peers.

The article says that since Harvard has as much debt as it can handle right now, major projects like the Allston campus have been shelved for the foreseeable future. Projects that were already started before the meltdown, like the $250-million law-school building, will continue, but officials quoted in the article said that they will require departments to raise a greater share of a project’s cost before construction begins.