BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL According to Inside Higher Education’s recent survey of college business officers, only 44 percent of those at private baccalaureate institutions believed that their institutions would be financially stable over the next decade. That means the leaders of these institutions – most of which lack a sizeable endowment – will need to…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Inside Higher Education (IHE) released its 2018 Survey of College and University Business Officers last week. While the findings vary across the different sectors of American higher education, many are sobering, especially for four-year private colleges. Many Small, Private Colleges’ Financial State is Perilous According to the IHE survey, conducted in…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL For the American consumer, there is a good deal of persistent confusion about the cost of higher education. Media reports usually point to the high “sticker price,” which does not reflect the actual cost of an education that most American families pay. On the public side, it fails to incorporate the…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL One of the central themes of the new book – How to Run a College: A Practical Guide for Trustees, Faculty, Administrators, and Policymakers — that my co-author, Dr. W. Joseph King, and I touch upon repeatedly is that American colleges and universities operate with an unsustainable financial model. Colleges’ Comprehensive…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s recently released their updated outlooks for American higher education. The news is not good. Moody’s revised its 2018 outlook for higher education from stable to negative “as aggregate operating revenue moderates while expense growth increases.” Moody’s vice president, Susan E. Shaffer, elaborated: “the annual change in…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL I’ve been thinking a great deal lately about how disruption will play out in American higher education. My hopes – and concerns – reflect a bedrock belief that America’s colleges and universities operate on an unsustainable finance model that must adapt to new realities. It is impossible to predict how many…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Swirling around the debates over the high sticker price of higher education is a deeper conversation about the broken financial model that most colleges and universities continue to use to pay their bills. While the largest universities have more options based on the scale of their endowment, fundraising prowess, and research…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Every solution offered by a college or university faces a pending crisis in a different way. Wealthy institutions have the resources to weather challenges by kicking the can down the road, often for decades. That’s why it is significant that Harvard University last week issued a warning about its financial constraints…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL As reported last week by Ashley A. Smith in Inside Higher Education, one of the most interesting developments in higher education is how the growing concern over high tuition sticker prices is playing out in state and national politics. Much of the discussion is a good-hearted effort to make college more…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL There is a basic, fundamental truth about the American college or university operating model: It doesn’t work. In the second half of the 20th century, America’s colleges and universities moved toward a similar operating model, depending upon their size, purpose, and funding source. Some scaled up to the research powerhouses that…