The three-way merger of Rutgers and Rowan universities and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey is a marriage of the haves and have nots, according to an analysis by Moody’s Investors Service.
While the proposed reorganization would bring New Jersey’s public research universities “more along the model used in nearly every other state in the U.S.,” the rating service said, the plan does not address how to pay for it and how to disburse or retire about $668 million in debt attached to UMDNJ.
Rutgers-Camden, which would be absorbed by Rowan under the plan, is also not unencumbered. The campus is carrying about $64 million in debt, plus another $60 million that was advanced internally with the intention of being reimbursed next year with proceeds from a bond sale.
Proponents of reshuffling the state’s health and medical education institutions — which include Gov. Chris Christie, George Norcross, influential Democratic leader and chairman of Cooper University Hospital; and Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney, D-Gloucester — have not disclosed a financial plan, or addressed the potential decline in tuition revenues from students once the Rutgers name is eliminated from the Camden campus.
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