Sustaining Higher Education

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.

The many changes that have occurred over the past two years have heightened the challenges that higher education leaders must address. In this blog, we offer some thoughts on what defines strong leadership in higher education.

Any way you look at it, America’s four-year private colleges and universities are in a very tough financial and strategic position. For the 2020-2021 academic year, the average...

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

With the need for further cost savings to ensure long-term financial viability, university leadership makes difficult decisions on underperforming programs.

A university explores partnerships as a middle ground between its current state and a cost reduction effort that would eliminate programs and services.

As universities face difficult financial challenges, integrated strategic financial planning helps identify options to keep institutions on a sustainable path forward.

Strategy requires choices, which includes choosing what not to do. An assessment of resources and any constraints they may place on strategic options is a first step toward refining these choices.

The pandemic’s effects on enrollment offer a preview of what lies ahead for colleges and universities as they approach the demographic cliff. Now is the time to consider what strategic options are available to your institution.

The unique characteristics of academic institutions can compound the difficulties, but colleges and universities that are serious about putting their strategy into action need to face this challenge head on.

The process of defining desired customer outcomes requires work, and that task is made more complicated for higher ed institutions because their services are often delivered over a course of years and extend across multiple areas, including academics, student housing, campus life, and job placement.

The focus on the customer is critical because it is the customer who defines the brand. Put simply, a college or university’s brand is what its customers—current and potential—perceive it to be. In the long run, retaining current customers and attracting new ones is far more important than maintaining the brand.

Sustaining Higher Ed is a monthly blog dedicated to helping college administrators and board trustees lead their organizations toward greater financial stability so they can stay on...

What if colleges and universities began to think of students more as customers (which they are)? How might that transform not only the strategic planning process, but the strategic goals and initiatives of the institution?

Look beyond universities to a wider community of partners that can help build and sustain relevant and engaging adult learning programs.

A thoughtful approach to integrating can minimize the friction that an expanded adult learning program might generate. Read more!