Excerpt from the Wright State Guardian
Wright State University received a credit rating upgrade from Moody’s, an investor service issuer in New York. Despite this upgrade, concerns about enrollment still exist at the university.
“What Moody’s is saying is your reserves are now at a healthy level. The way we got here was by being very careful about how we spent money, the budget discipline that they’re talking about. That’s what caused the reserves to grow again to get up to become a more healthy level,” Trustee Douglas Fecher said.
According to Moody’s rating statistics, WSU operated under a stable rating from 2003 to 2015; however, in May 2017, the ratings were negative. The greatest factor in the rating change is tied to enrollment at the university.
According to a report that Moody’s conducted in October 2015 the enrollment at the university was about 17,000 students. The latest report noted 9,531 full-time students were attending the university in the fall of 2022.
According to Moody’s most recent report, another factor in the rating change was the implementation of material labor force reductions through a voluntary faculty separation program.
In February 2021, the Wright State Board of Trustees voted to eliminate up to 113 faculty positions at the university. Fecher addressed the issue of faculty reductions on campus.
