Compendium of Interinstitutional Partnerships

This resource aids leaders in their strategic thinking on potential interinstitutional collaboration pathways through industry-level trends, a compendium of partnership types, and detailed case studies.

Universities and colleges are increasingly interested in exploring collaborations with other institutions to expand student opportunities and bolster institutional financial sustainability. While interinstitutional partnerships can lower costs and generate revenue, these relationships take time to establish and leaders often struggle to convince colleagues of their merit or identify what the best partnership options are. To assist leaders in securing buy-in and expanding partnerships, EAB complied 50+ leading examples of higher education consortia.

Financial pressures driving urgency to scale operating costs

The higher education business model has been under fire for the past decade, as escalating costs and volatile state support have driven unsustainable tuition and fee growth. As revenue pressures intensify, higher ed leaders are focusing on cost management as a path to a more viable operating model. In particular, many leaders are looking for new opportunities to scale costs, since most of higher ed’s operating costs are fixed.

Spectrum of organizational options for achieving scale

Across the past decade, many institutions have achieved greater efficiency by deploying the strategies on the left end of the spectrum: shared service hubs, campus-wide shared service centers, and greater centralization. However, given recent budget pressures, leaders are increasingly interested in interinstitutional partnerships as a means to achieving even greater savings or benefits. This is a particularly promising solution for small institutions with limited opportunities to consolidate their own staff or services.

The promise of partnership

Through interinstitutional partnerships, two or more institutions can provide compulsory goods or services—like health benefits or office equipment—at a lower price point. Partnerships also enable institutions to provide more diverse or higher-quality services that they could not afford on their own, enhancing their value proposition or administrative effectiveness. For example, a group of institutions can partner to offer academic programs or student activities at a cost-effective price point, increasing their individual appeal among prospective students.

Barriers to widespread adoption

Despite their benefits, interinstitutional partnerships are still rare in higher education. Successfully forming partnerships can require complex negotiations, material upfront costs, and cultural disruption—and some cabinets are not convinced that the effort will be worth the reward. Others recognize that partnership is their institution’s most viable financial path forward but aren’t sure what the best partnership options are.

How to secure buy-in and expand partnerships

This resource is designed to help cabinets and boards overcome these barriers to partnership. Section 1 identifies eight industry trends in interinstitutional collaboration, based on EAB’s analysis of diverse partnership models. Leaders can review these trends to gain a macro-level understanding of how institutions across the industry use partnerships to share costs and enhance their value propositions.

Section 2 of this resource contains a compendium of fifty types of interinstitutional partnerships in existence in higher ed today. Leaders should consider this a comprehensive menu of partnership options and use the examples to inspire ideas for addressing current cost barriers.

The fifty examples in the compendium are organized in nine functional categories, including academics, administrative services, auxiliaries, and information technology. Within each category, each example contains a description of the partnership and its savings agents (e.g., shared facilities, shared staff, group purchasing power). Each example also includes an implementation complexity score (i.e., low, medium, or high) to help leaders anticipate the upfront costs and negotiations required to replicate it.

Learn More About the Trends