Dive Brief:
- The University of Cincinnati has gone into major debt trying to turn its campus into a destination for full-paying students, sponsoring architectural masterpieces by Frank Gehry, Michael Graves, Peter Eisenman, Bernard Tschumi, and Thom Mayne.
- The university has bet on its investments in expensive architecture over the last four decades, since state funding started declining, hoping the building boom would catalyze a spike in interest from prospective students.
- Since 2004, the university’s debt has gone up 20%, according to the New York Times Magazine, and in the same period, enrollment has increased by 30%.
Dive Insight:
Many colleges and universities across the country are stretching themselves thin with investments in campus buildings. Sometimes, that is at the expense of the proper maintenance of existing buildings. Luxury buildings, lazy rivers, and rock climbing walls all get built in the name of competition as schools try to attract affluent students who can pay full tuition. Some of the most easily marketed amenities are architectural in nature. Touting a new program or research project only gets schools so far. The expensive facilities make the cost of education increase, but absent some industrywide agreement to pull back, the stakes often seem too high.