All Featured Insights

In an increasingly competitive environment, colleges and universities must define and assert where they have a competitive advantage and ensure that they are reaching their full market of potential enrollees. The ultimate goal of these efforts is to enhance market essentiality.

Strategic planning and financial planning are highly interrelated and interdependent disciplines. Institutional financial literacy creates the perfect environment and means of communication in which an integrated strategic financial planning process can thrive.

Promoting financial literacy serves two important purposes. First, it makes everyone aware of the institution’s current financial health. Second, it makes everyone aware of what will be required to ensure the institution’s financial health over the long term.

Some colleges are pursuing athletic program expansion to boost enrollment and tuition revenue. The key question is whether this strategy will boost the institution’s financial performance as well.

This past year in higher education has been fraught with challenges, both new and chronic. A focus on objective assessment, planning, and preparation will be vitally necessary to survive the ever-changing weather of higher education.

Higher education is facing a crisis of confidence in the value of a college degree, with risk implications for enrollments, tuition pricing, and capital spending. Avoiding these risks begins with finding and quantifying the appropriate “corridor of control” for your institution.

Financial reserves are essential to the sustainability of any college or university. Integrating reserve goals to strategic planning through development of a strategic financial plan helps ensure that sufficient reserves will be available to meet the institution’s needs.

The environment in which higher education is operating is creating the need for new thinking and strategies. Institutions may need to swing big and hope for a home run.

Publication of the academic catalog for the 2024-2025 academic year may seem a long way off right now, but now is the time to start thinking about an academic portfolio review to ensure...

Listen to higher education sector leaders from Fitch Ratings, Moody’s Investors Service, and S&P Global Ratings for an in-depth conversation on trends affecting rating actions in higher education today.

Gordon Gee, president of West Virginia University, sat down with the Kaufman Hall Higher Education team to reflect on his 42-year career as a university president and discuss the challenges facing higher education leadership today.

With plans for an administrative restructuring finalized, a university completes its roadmap to financial sustainability. Some early successes help boost momentum.