The Massachusetts Institute of Technology this week borrowed $750-million by issuing taxable bonds that it plans to repay not over 30 years, the usual term for capital borrowing by universities, but over 100 years.
All of the handwringing over the future of higher education in this country (or the world) aside, I hope those bondholders buy some good default insurance--or at least require MIT to take out some flood insurance. It's pretty close to the water. And an EPA study from 2005 predicted that:
By the end of this century, global warming threatens to raise the sea level enough that a heavy storm would send flood waters into Boston's downtown waterfront, the Financial District, and much of the Back Bay, based on projections in a federally funded report to be released today
Animation and follow up here
