University bonds: An education in finance

　　Less well known is the increasing willingness of colleges to borrow in the markets, too. On May 15th, for example, Cornell University sold $250m-worth of bonds.In recent weeks both Harvard and the University of Texas have also raised hundreds of millions of dollars in this way.
Such debt-raising is becoming more common. There are abundant reasons to believe that the market will grow much bigger yet.
　　Largely this is because colleges are only belatedly becoming aware of how useful the financial markets can be. No doubt some of their hesitation has been cultural: academics may have been reluctant to look at their universities as businesses; or they may have misunderstood what was needed to help those businesses grow. 
　　If they did look at their institutions in economic terms, people in education tended not to think that universities lacked capital. Rather, they thought that they had a structural inability to use capital and labour more efficiently. Unlike the car industry, many schools felt that they must maintain, or even increase, the ratio of employees (teachers) to customers (students). Small class sizes are taken as a signal of high quality, so investing money to save on teachers' salaries is not an attractive strategy.
　　Schools had other reservations as well. Poor schools were worried about being unable to service debt. Rich schools with huge endowments may have seen no need. 
　　So much for an academic perspective. A growing number of investors saw things differently. Those lovely buildings on rolling campuses, the better universities' reputations, taxpayers' backing of state-owned institutions: all this looked to them like a deep pool of assets against which lots of money could be borrowed. The money raised could be used to attract more customers, who are choosy about the product and whose demand varies little with the price (loudly though they may complain).
　　Some of the richest universities may be using another tactic too, although they would be loth to admit it. To understand this, it helps to know that America has three types of university-public ones; private, not-for-profit institutions; and private schools run for profit. Both public and not-for-profit universities often issue tax-exempt debt. This tends to be cheap. They can then invest the money they raise in the higheryielding taxable market but, because of their non-profit status, avoid taxes. 
　　This is not quite a licence to print money, but it is not far off. Under a 1986 law, money has to be raised for a purpose, such as a building.However, this is a matter of substance rather than form. Money is fungible. As long as the tax authorities are happy that the promised sum is being spent on the stated projects, a university can borrow cheaply and, in effect, earn a spread. Reflecting just how complex this market has become, most universities borrow at variable rates and then hedge their interest-rate risk through swaps.It is all pretty clever. 
Outside America, schools have been hesitant to take this approach largely because their operations and spending are more closely tied to the state, but they too are changing, if slowly.

　　参考译文：

大学债券：教育经费的新窗口

　　不为人知的是，越来越多的大学开始热衷于向市场贷款。例如，康奈尔大学于5月15日出售了价值2亿5千万美元的债券。最近几周，哈佛大学和德克斯大学也通过这样的途径获取了数以亿计的资金。
像这种贷款集资的方式已经越来越普遍，我们有足够的理由相信市场会得到大幅度的扩张。 
　　这主要是因为，很多大学才刚刚发现金融市场的用处有多大。当然，受传统文化的影响，一部分人还持怀疑态度：学术派不愿看到学校过于商业化；或者他们没有看清帮助这种商业扩张需要的是什么。
如果他们从经济学的观点来看这些学校，教育者们难以接受这些大学会缺乏资金。他们更倾向于认为，学校有足够的组织能力来驾驭资金和劳动力。与汽车行业不同的是，很多学校愿意为了消费者（学生）的需要而保持，甚至增加员工（教师）的比率。小型的课堂教育被认为是高质量的标志，因此投入资金来节省教师薪水并不是有吸引力的方案。
　　各个学校也有其他方面的限制。普通学校担心自己无法偿还债务。名牌大学由于有巨额的资金捐赠或许没有必要向市场贷款。
学术派的观点暂且讨论到这里。更多的投资者们持不同的看法。校园里面漂亮的教学楼，更佳的学校声望，国有机构的纳税者支持：所有这些对于他们而言，借来的资金就像丢进了一个无底洞。更多的资金可以吸引到更多的消费者（学生），这些消费者对产品之间的微小差别会吹毛求疵，而不会太在意价格的不同。
　　一些最有钱的大学或许会采用另一种方法，虽然他们不愿承认。要理解这一方法，我们首先要清楚美国的大学分为三类--公立、私立和非盈利型；私立学校为了利润而经营，而公立学校和非盈利学校常常发行一种免税债券，而这种债券并不昂贵。他们可以在高税收的领域投入资金，然而，由于他们的非盈利性质，常常避开纳税。
　　这虽谈不上像拿到印钞许可证一样，但实质上也差的不远。根据1986年的法律，筹集资金需要一定的理由，比如修一栋楼之类的。然而，这只是其实质并非表面。货币是可替换物。只要税务机构对这些花费在国有工程的许诺金额满意，大学就能相对便宜地借到资金，有效地赢得其中的差额。这就反应出了市场变得是多么的复杂，很多大学贷款的比例都不一样，然后通过交换来保护利率风险。这些想法都相当聪明。
　　在美国以外的学校对于全面采用这种方式集资还徘徊不前，因为学校的运作和开销与国家的联系更为紧密，但是他们也在慢慢转变。