Dozens of colleges and universities, including some of the country's wealthiest institutions, are facing a sharp rise in interest payments on a whopping mound of debt. About a third of the nearly 300 private institutions rated by Moody's Investors Service are financing more than half their debt with variable-rate bonds, some of whose rates have skyrocketed in recent weeks. Many colleges--public and private--are scrambling to restructure hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, as the interest payments double or triple beyond what they had budgeted and a long-term rise in rates appears possible. This article discusses how higher education institutions are moving to fixed-rate securities as they face the credit crunch.