Moody’s Revises Credit Outlook to Stable

Dear Roosevelt Community,

I am pleased to share that Moody’s Investors Service has revised Roosevelt University’s outlook to stable from negative. In Roosevelt’s first positive ratings action, Moody’s stated that the stable outlook reflects the maintenance of unrestricted liquidity and management’s ongoing efforts to achieve operational sustainability. Specifically, the report stated that in a highly competitive enrollment market, Roosevelt has been able to successfully confront challenges through partnerships and expanded program offerings.

The University’s continued goal is to balance the budget. Our current financial challenges have created a sense of urgency to not only evaluate current operations but also seek new opportunities from non-tuition revenues and mergers. Moody’s view expresses that expenses are being rationalized through structural changes to the labor pool, a recent debt restructuring and other budget-relieving measures. The improved rating does acknowledge that the University continues to face a difficult financial test, one that we are responding to aggressively through our Building a Stronger University strategic plan.

I want to stress that the rating improvement from negative to stable underscores the progress we have made to date, from creating budgetary and operational flexibility to quickly implementing new student housing protocols that lessened the impact on revenues. Federal stimulus and expense rationalization helped us all work through a challenging fiscal 2020. However, our financial situation remains serious, and we must continue to stay the course and get to budgetary balance.

Through our Building a Stronger University strategic plan, I am confident we will get through these unprecedented times and that Roosevelt will emerge stronger, academically and financially. Thank you for your continued hard work and commitment to Roosevelt. The full rating report can be found here.

With Warm Regards,

Ali R. Malekzadeh, Ph.D.
President