Letting Numbers Tell the Story - Kevin Kiley, Inside Higher Ed

Now, liquidity -- the ability to turn assets into cash, and how quickly that can be done – has become a prominent financial concern for the sector. “Before 2008, we didn’t track this nearly as well as we should have,” Sweet said. “If there is a silver lining to the 2008 crisis, it’s that it opened our eyes to our ability to access liquidity.” Liquidity -- and how colleges manage it and share information about it -- has come under the microscope by agencies that rate institutions’ credit-worthiness, and therefore has become a priority for financial managers. Several signs indicate that colleges and universities, in an effort to improve liquidity, are being slightly more conservative with their investments than in the past. Administrators have also begun developing new techniques to track information not only about liquidity, but also their institutions’ financial picture as a whole. Some are also working to better communicate that picture to those who invest in the institutions' bonds, as well as other stakeholders, including, at public universities, lawmakers.