By Patricia Alex, Staff Writer. The Record.
Concerns remain over more than $1 billion in combined debt carried by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and Rowan University as financial details of the state’s university merger are hashed out over the next 11 months, Moody’s Investors Service said in a preliminary report issued Tuesday.
The credit rating agency also warned of the creation of a potentially “cumbersome” bureaucracy as the state moves forward on complex plans to merge much of the health sciences university with Rutgers University and to expand the research capacity of Rowan.
But Moody’s was bullish about the expansion of Rutgers and the leadership of its new president, Robert Barchi, who is slated to take the helm next week. The agency said the merger, which adds medical and dental schools to Rutgers, would “greatly enhance Rutgers’ position as a research university.” Over time, the agency said, that could increase the revenue it gets from biomedical research grants and contracts.
Barchi’s background – he was a neuroscience researcher who served as president of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and provost at the University of Pennsylvania – should help him “optimize the research capability of the expanded university,” Moody’s said.
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