joining us to discuss what is driving this binge on debt is bloomberg's news reporter, martin braun, andard & poor's. martin, give me the size and scope of the borrowing we are seeing now among manhattan schools. >> right now we are seeing $70 million of darling and we are online for another 150 million dollars in the next couple of months. riverdale has a tuition of $45,000. collegiate, saint and stash these are schools -- saint anne's, these are schools -- betty: is part of the reason because they are worried about rising? rates guest: that is part of it. there are a number of dynamics. endowments have gone up as martin has gone up. these are colleges and universities, in a way. in the marketet before interest rates go up, and they also have projects they need to do because their facilities are not up to snuff. ok.y: needed upgrade, how strong are these independent schools to borrow in the bond markets at reasonable rates? guest: the schools that are borrowing in new york tend to be some of the stronger independent schools we rate. they tend to be in the "a" category or above, schoo