Dive Brief:
- Colleges and universities are looking toward partnerships as a way to mitigate declining enrollment figures and reduced tuition revenue — with many deciding to share resources and facilities with other institutions in order to cut down on costs, according to The Hechinger Report. In another form of this, Campus Technology reports on an example of a consortia among four state universities to develop a common "digital learning ecosystem."
- As one benefit, these partnerships can enable schools to purchase products and services collectively, which helps institutions cut down as much as 25% of their costs for services like energy and software, according to Keith Fowlkes, the co-founder and vice president of the Higher Education Systems and Services Consortium — which has expanded from five original schools to 100 in just three years.
- And, by cutting down on operational costs, institutions can invest more of their revenue back into "student-facing services" like new courses and programs that encourage student enrollment. However, consortia haven't helped all schools, and it can be difficult to use such an approach to recover from a massive deficit.
Dive Insight:
Combining resources and facilities can be a rewarding prospect for colleges and universities, particularly if they are located close to each other. For instance, it is much easier for students to enroll in courses across multiple schools in the Atlanta University Consortium because the institutions are so close to each other. Schools in these types of situations deciding to share resources can help them cut costs in the face of declining revenue, as the distance between campuses is a non-issue. In fact, some universities that have merged with other schools have actually relocated their administrative offices to areas equidistant between campuses to try to reap the same benefits of geographic proximity, such as what Bucknell University and Rutgers University did. Rural universities may also benefit from a consortia that can help them more cheaply access online educational resources and other digital materials at a more affordable rate, mitigating the need to physically combine resources.
Institutions in partnerships can benefit through the negotiation process of outlining specific wants and gives, because the number of potential applicants continues to dwindle, particularly in certain regions of the country. And, these higher ed institutions may be faced with enrollment competition, which might make them wary to enter into agreements via a consortia that could potentially limit ways in which they could innovate in order to attract a larger student pool. It is also possible that consortia can be used as a soft launch for potential mergers among institutions — so that if it does need to occur, it is not as onerous a task for all the schools involved.