Every year, almost all boards have an action item on their agenda to approve their institution's tuition and fees for the next year. Yet few of them are involved in discussions about the values and policies embedded in what they are being asked to approve or how the institution decides what to charge different students. That could very well change…

Colleges and universities are thinking strategically about their business models. Reductions in state and federal appropriations, endowment volatility, fundraising uncertainties, and limits on tuition increases are creating persistent shortfalls in operating budgets. This all comes when institutions are being called upon to enroll and graduate…

Moody's Investors Service provides credit ratings for hundreds of private and public colleges and universities--ratings that can strongly influence the interest rates higher-education institutions can obtain when they want to borrow money. How colleges are governed and managed are key determinants of those credit ratings, especially in an…

Boards do not have to wait for coming reforms to improve pricing and academic structure for students. They can have a significant impact immediately by making recognized learning portable, simplifying pricing, and reducing costs to students. Developmental education, blended and online learning, and adaptive learning are being touted as…

On the surface, America has a great higher education system that works beautifully. Our colleges and universities, we are often told, are the best in the world. They consistently dominate the international rankings. A number of Nobel Prize award winners are closely associated with American institutions. Foreign students flock to our country to…

Presidents and boards deal with great uncertainty all the time. Today, however, many of them also face a troubling certainty: Business as usual is the road to failure. The trend lines of revenue and expense, once aided by marginal income from growing enrollments, once amenable to marginal annual balancing tweaks, and once cushioned by reserves,…

A long-term decline in state-government funding and an increase in funds from other sources are creating the need for broader types of expertise on boards of public universities. Public universities are becoming increasingly market-driven and consequently must deal with a broader base of stakeholders. As a result of these changes, public boards…

In August, President Bush signed the Higher Education Opportunity Act into law and in doing so completed the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. The six-year effort spanned three Congresses and required 14 short-term extensions of the underlying law to ensure that student-aid benefits would remain available while deliberations continued.…

The past two decades have seen a significant shift in the financial model of American higher education, laying groundwork for a transformation that could reshape people's understanding of the academy. The shift--toward increasing degrees of privatization--is unmistakable and has affected every American college and university to varying extents.…

During this period of continued economic uncertainty, higher-education institutions are facing a variety of challenges that by now are very familiar to governing boards and institutional leaders, including poor investment returns, reduced liquidity, limited choices in how they structure debt issues, and threats to flexibility in tuition pricing.…

Colleges and universities, like corporations and other nonprofit organizations, are subject to periodic fluctuations in the economy and public support. Thus, the question is not whether they will confront financial problems but rather when and how. This article describes how institutions and boards can detect budgets in crisis, provides principles…

Explores reasons behind higher-than-inflation tuition increases at private colleges, the public interest in tuition rates at private institutions, and what trustees at private colleges and universities can do to bring tuition under control. (EV)

Discusses why customized financial aid packages designed to attract selected students to fill a desired niche can jeopardize a college's fiscal health. (EV)

At least one private college, Bennington College (Vermont), has cut tuition, as part of a larger restructuring project. More may follow suit, in hopes of attracting more students. Guidelines to help institutions determine whether such a strategy could be cost effective for them are offered. (MSE)

This article describes how Luther College in Decorah, Iowa executed a board-approved plan to generate revenue by offering group facilitation services to corporations and nonprofits. Luther College is a mid-sized college (2,600 undergraduates) with a moderately sized endowment and is heavily tuition dependent. Given the growing concerns about the…