During this period of continued economic uncertainty, higher-education institutions are facing a variety of challenges that by now are very familiar to governing boards and institutional leaders, including poor investment returns, reduced liquidity, limited choices in how they structure debt issues, and threats to flexibility in tuition pricing. Within each of these areas, based on the data that Moody's Investors Service has gathered through its assignment of debt ratings to approximately 530 private and public colleges, the author believes that the vulnerabilities may affect certain types of institutions more than others--particularly the more expensive, more tuition-dependent institutions and small private colleges with lower credit ratings. This article presents several risks identified by Moody's that could weaken the credit quality of higher-education institutions in the short term. (Contains 2 figures.)