Interesting hypothesis by a Bloomberg reporter today - key statistic impacting market view of higher ed muni bond issuers is ratio of acceptances to applications.Keeping low ratio could potentially translate into interest rate savings on bond financings.
More like there is a correlation between popular demand (i.e. high application volume relative to size of class) and the ability of the college to fill its seats with students who are financially and academically capable of attending and paying tuition for four years.
What @ucbalumnus said! Correlation is not causation.
Bond holders want to know that the college will be around 20 years from now to pay off the bonds. this is nothing new. Many of the statistics submitted to USNews are also submitted to Moody’s.
For example, here is Northeastern’s submission;
http://www.dacbond.com/GetContent?id=0900bbc78020d399
EDIT: That has become password protected since I last looked at it, sorry.