A major credit agency warns that Penn State University’s bond rating could be downgraded because of risks to its reputation and finances from a child sex abuse scandal.
Moody’s Investors Service said Friday it has put the university’s Aa1 bond rating under review for a possible downgrade after ex-coach Jerry Sandusky was charged with molesting eight children over a 15-year period.
Moody’s will assess the potential impact on Penn State of risks from possible lawsuits, a decline in students applying to attend the school, loss of donations from philanthropies and changes in its relationship with the state.
Here is the link, hat tip to Michael Rosenwald.
PSU covered up Michael Mann (by choosing partial investigators). They will cover this up as well.
Jay- just for the record the Chancellor and Head Coach have been fired… what on Earth do you even think you are talking about?
And Sandusky was fired years ago too. Volunteer football advisor Joe Pa. Just need the court cases to run the course first.
They are trying to limit the damage. Same as it ever was.
Markets in moral behaviour, or lack thereof.
The irony of American campuses is that more students know the name of the football coach than their university chancellor.
Is it common for undergraduates to know, or care, who the boss of their university is? I admit that I knew at that age, but only because the first one was a distinguished old boy who had had a bit of space named after him, and the second one was an utter twat.
I knew him; Graham Spanier always self-promoted fiercely. He was great at raising money–for himself.
How about deans or even department chairs? Are undergrads aware of those? Or the Nobel laureates (if any) at the university?
It often seemed like the University was a football team with academics as a side-show (ok, I exaggerate). But it was indeed annoying that the highest paid position on campus is often the football coach. Sort of revealed what the priorities were.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
If the rioting PSU students are an indicator, the alumni will double down on donations.
And this is another in a long list of reasons why football (and basketball) needs a true minor league. (The NCAA and its “amateur student athlete” line is bs.)
See “The Shame of College Sports”
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/10/the-shame-of-college-sports/8643/
To sort out this mess you probably need to elect Teddy Roosevelt as President. He may be dead but at least you know where he was born.
You just made yourself look ridiculous with your last sentence
You just made yourself look ridiculous with your last sentence
Not for nothing, but it’s exactly this kind of overreaction that makes people cover up stuff like this. To be fair, it’s moronic for an institution of higher learning to get so worked up about a glorified gym teacher. It’s college, folks, we go there to learn, not to watch football. If you’re just in it for the sports, I can get you a Dish Network subscription. Save you a lot of money.
Except for the fact that the glorified gym teacher is paid more then any one else on campus. Realistically I think a lot of US colleges are there for the sports first and the academics second. Although I doubt this scandal will really hurt enrollment much.
Pay isn’t about how much their worth. Any reader on this blog should know that. Wage is determined at the margin, not total utility, respect, or importance.
A lot of people go to Penn State for the sports. Seriously.
Overreaction? Don’t be ridiculous.
Look, a violent crime was committed by a university employee, on university premises, and witnessed by another employee. The second employee clearly should have called the police. Instead he, perhaps understandably but inadequately, informed the criminal’s superiors. They in turn, grown men in positions of great responsibility – educators – failed to call the police, thereby quite possibly permitting the rapist to attack other victims in the future.
What do you think is the proper response if you become aware of the commission of a violent crime? Shrug it off?
If the victims were nobodies- I mean they were on the margins of society, unlikely to cause any fuss, and had no power, I’d just say whatever.
I witness bums getting the shit beat out of them on a regular basis-by other bums or by the cops or security guards, and I don’t care.
To the extent that bonds were being issued on the assumption the football would continue to be very profitable for them, this makes sense. I don’t do sports, but I know people who do, and I very much doubt those people want to think about old guys raping 10 year olds on Sunday afternoons.
Turns out, reputation matters.
Reputation does matter, which is why I don’t believe anything coming out of Moody’s.
+1
It is a sign of how much a witch hunt this has become that nobody can even state the facts accurately. The alleged offender did not work for the university.
This is the obvious definition of a witch hunt. Something happened 10 years ago. A grand jury hears one very biased side of the story (that is what grand juries do), which has at least three people saying one thing and one person saying another. Now in three days the mob wants everyone connected fired, and they want more blood too.
Whether in the end Joe Paterno should be fired, reprimanded, or not guilty, nobody wants to consider. It is the very definition of a witch hunt.
I am sure nobody wants to agree because the lynch mob is running hot. But if you stop and think for a minute, why did this all have to happen in three days???????
Hold on, Borealis. What are you reading that I’m not?
“On March 1, 2002, McQueary claims to have seen Sandusky having anal sex in the locker room shower with a boy about 10 years old.
A 28-year-old graduate assistant coach at the time, McQueary said he had gone to the facility around 9:30 p.m. to put sneakers in his locker and retrieve some recruiting tapes. He testified he heard “rhythmic slapping sounds” coming from the showers. When he looked in that direction, McQueary said, Sandusky and the boy also saw him.
“The graduate assistant left immediately, distraught,” the report says.
He called his father, and the next morning, the two went to Paterno’s house and McQueary “reported what he had seen,” the report says.”
http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/12/us/penn-state-scandal/
What kind of a person gets a report of this nature and does not call the police? Also, who the f are these people defending Paterno or anyone else who was complicit in this coverup?
Some may call this a witch-hunt, others might call it long overdue justice.
Joe “Pa” (gross) sold his soul to the devil in 2002 in exchange for 9 more years of coaching.
THAT would also explain Italy’s downgrading.
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