Dive Brief:
- Two community colleges in Arkansas are considering merging with the University of Arkansas System, a move that would limit their independence but offer compelling efficiencies.
- The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports the merger discussions have been prompted by stagnant funding from the state, and if both schools join the UA System, it would mark the first time more of the state’s colleges are part of the system than independent from it.
- While the mergers may not create a financial windfall for the schools, they are expected to come with economies of scale in systemwide contracts, like with Blackboard, and create new efficiencies so more money can be directed to serving students.
Dive Insight:
Georgia has led the country in the number of mergers among higher education institutions. In 2013, eight schools merged to form four new schools with new names and new presidents, causing a shakeup in the system that Chancellor Hank Huckaby had been working on for years. Two more mergers moved through the Board of Regents in 2015. The consolidation strategy seems to be gaining steam in North Carolina, and academic leaders elsewhere, in the private and public sphere, are increasingly seeing it as a serious option.
In 2015 Union Graduate College in Schenectady, NY, announced it would merge its small but stable program with the larger Clarkson University in Potsdam. The key to such decisions rests on a win-win deal for both parties. Struggling institutions must move on mergers or other consolidations before their finances become too much of a liability to make a deal.