BLACKSBURG — From rising costs of issuing debt and plummeting endowment values to the announcement this week of the freezing of billions of dollars in operating funds, universities across the country are feeling the effects of the economic crisis.

And Virginia’s colleges are no exception.

“I have never experienced the breadth of turmoil in the broad financial markets that’s going on right now, particularly on the debt side,” said Ray Smoot, Virginia Tech’s treasurer and chief operating officer of the Virginia Tech Foundation.

The value of Virginia Tech’s endowment — the pool of private funds the foundation invests to support university initiatives in perpetuity — has dropped nearly 10 percent since June 30, from $527 million to about $480 million. The annual endowment payout, which uses endowment earnings to fund things like scholarships and professorships, is set at the beginning of the fiscal year. It’s based on average endowment value over three years, so the losses since July won’t have an immediate impact on its $32.4 million, Smoot said.

“A 10 percent drop in one quarter in and of itself is not going to have much of an impact,” he said.

If that trend continues, however, it could reduce payouts over the long term. But for the short term, Smoot said he is more concerned about the debt market. Tech had plans to issue about $150 million in debt in mid-November. But with skyrocketing costs for banks to guarantee that debt and high interest rates, the university may have to hold off on those plans and the construction that they fund, he said.

Among the projects tied to the $150 million in debt is Tech’s new $90 million research facility in Northern Virginia and two new buildings at Tech’s Corporate Research Center in Blacksburg. John Cusimano, director of investments and debt management, said the feeling in the industry is that interest rates will start to come back to normal in the spring, so that may be a wiser time to issue the debt.

“It all depends on when President [Charles] Steger wants to move forward and if they can find a market for the debt,” Smoot said.

One pitfall Tech was able to avoid was investment in the Common Fund for Short Term Investments. On Monday, Wachovia Corp. announced it was terminating the fund, which holds more than $9 billion in investments for more than 900 colleges and schools. Wachovia also announced a phased withdrawal plan of the fund’s assets, leaving some money that schools had planned on taking out to pay operating costs frozen. Schools can withdraw 37 percent of their holdings now and will have access to at least 57 percent by the end of the year.

Tech had $30 million in the fund in May but moved it to more conservative government money market funds.