Unpacking the Impact of the Infrastructure Materials Shortage

Higher education Facilities leaders are confronting a more difficult and unpredictable environment for maintaining and improving campus infrastructure. Material shortages, rising costs, tariffs, and growing competition for construction inputs are reshaping project timelines and budgets across the sector.

This virtual presentation will briefly unpack the market forces contributing to today’s infrastructure materials constraints and introduce a total cost of ownership mindset for evaluating facilities decisions in this environment. From there, the session will shift to a facilitated discussion driven by the experiences of attendees. Together, attendees will explore questions including:

• Where are materials shortages, cost increases, and lead-time uncertainty creating the greatest challenges for your campus today?
• How are facilities teams adapting project planning, procurement, maintenance, or design decisions in response to these pressures?
• What approaches are helping institutions balance immediate cost and availability concerns with longer-term lifecycle costs and infrastructure needs?

The discussion will give participants an opportunity to compare challenges, surface emerging practices, and learn directly from how peers are responding to a rapidly changing infrastructure environment.

We will conclude by connecting these near-term pressures to two longer-term challenges facing higher education: growing deferred maintenance backlogs and underutilized campus space. These closing perspectives will help broaden the conversation from managing today’s constraints to considering how institutions can make more sustainable decisions about the size, condition, and long-term stewardship of the physical campus.

Session

Click the Register button to sign up.

Attendance is limited to Chief Business Officers, Chief Operating Officers, and Senior Facilities Officers. Registration is limited to one attendee per institution.

• Thursday, October 15, 2026 | 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time