Dive Brief:
- Institutions with aging buildings often find the costs of deferred-maintenance pile up to be millions of dollars, especially because cuts to facilities maintenance are easy to make — the case for California's public college system, which needs $47.2 billion over the next 5 years to cover construction and renovations, according to a report a new College Futures Report.
- However, seeking money from donors alone may not be enough, writes The Chronicle of Higher Education. The College Futures Report offers several alternatives, including public-private joint ventures, which would allow for sharing of resources across higher ed groups and society — like libraries or housing that could serve students and local residents.
- The report states that institutions can also offer more online learning options for students to reduce the need for more classroom seats. Likewise, it suggests institutions turn to the federal government for infrastructure financing, as well as conduct year-round operations to encourage greater use of existing facilities.
Dive Insight:
Joint public-private ventures, online learning and yearly reviews can help institutions cut building and maintenance costs, while considering long-term needs — but many education stakeholders say there is another key component to this: considering what students want. Studies show students are more attuned to politics and into activism and come to school demanding a sustainable environment.
Goucher College put student desires first when two older buildings on its Maryland campus needed to be upgraded. To cut costs, while at the same time encouraging student participation in campus construction, Goucher reused materials from the older buildings and outfitted the new buildings with amenities that ended up being less costly in the long run — for instance, evergreen 'fake' grass in the courtyard that doesn't need to be heavily maintained. Bowen said long-terms savings come from considering learners wants first.
"Students are looking at a lot of things — the curriculum, the dining hall. But where you're going to live is still on the top list of things that matter to students, the quality of the community you're going to build is important to them," said President José Bowen. "We do consider new buildings a part of recruitment, but we designed our new buildings looking at retention, which is why we sought student input. We knew that if it was successful, students would want to live there."