Higher Education Finance

Stevens & Lee has broad and deep experience serving the higher education community in a wide variety of matters, including higher education finance. We assist higher education clients in identifying and achieving their financial objectives through the development and implementation of innovative and cost-effective financing structures. We also have particular expertise in assisting not-for-profit private preparatory schools and have played an active role in both new money and refinancing transactions for a broad range of educational borrowers.

We also represent the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA) in connection with its financial matters and are actively involved in its continuing effort to deliver low-cost student loan financing products.

Our tax-exempt finance attorneys are well-known in the higher education community for providing effective and creative service as bond counsel, underwriter’s counsel, special tax counsel, swap counsel, borrower’s counsel, issuer’s counsel and bank counsel. Over the past decade, we have successfully negotiated, documented and closed more than 100 tax-exempt financings and restructurings in the higher education industry consisting of traditional fixed-rate financings, as well as complex variable rate debt structures involving a broad array of liquidity, insurance and derivative products. Our focus in any tax-exempt bond is to maximize the tax and financial structure of a transaction while obtaining the best possible results for the transaction as a whole.

We have extensive experience with higher education financings, including:

  • Served as bond counsel, underwriter’s counsel and borrower’s counsel to colleges and universities throughout the Commonwealth to fund projects including science and engineering centers, libraries, student union buildings, athletic and health facilities and student housing facilities
  • Served as bond and underwriter’s counsel in financings for several community colleges throughout Pennsylvania to fund major projects, including the construction of multiple new facilities, such as a state-of-the-art training and technology center which responds to the needs of employers within that community
  • Served as agency counsel to the second largest student loan provider in the nation in connection with its governmental borrowings for infrastructure and its student loan financings. Also serve as agency counsel with respect to direct student loan securitizations and “two step” securitizations
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