Student selectivity and higher education institutions credit ratings
Journal of Financial Economic Policy
ISSN: 1757-6385
Article publication date: 24 June 2020
Issue publication date: 21 January 2021
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the relation between the creditworthiness of US institutions of higher education and their student selectivity (i.e. demand and quality).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors study whether the impact of student selectivity differs across public vs private universities; across the credit quality of the given public university’s state; and across the level of state appropriations for the given public university.
Findings
The authors find that student quality and demand measures are significantly associated with their corresponding institution’s creditworthiness, especially for private universities.
Originality/value
For public universities the association is weak and, contrary to the expectations, does not depend on the state credit quality or level of state funding. The findings are robust to the inclusion of control variables.
Keywords
Citation
Gottesman, A. and Ismailescu, I. (2021), "Student selectivity and higher education institutions credit ratings", Journal of Financial Economic Policy, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 136-159. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFEP-10-2019-0200
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited