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Tuition Reset

A Solution for Few, a Mirage for Many

June 1, 2026 by Dean Hoke – Seven private colleges have announced major tuition resets in the past eighteen months, cutting their published prices by as much as 60 percent. The announcements have generated headlines, praise from some observers, and renewed debate across higher education.

At first glance, the trend appears significant. When institutions slash tuition from $50,000 to $25,000 or from $40,000 to $20,000, it naturally attracts the attention of presidents, trustees, and enrollment leaders seeking ways to respond to mounting demographic and financial pressures.

But as I began looking more closely at the recent wave of tuition resets, a different question emerged. The issue is not whether tuition resets generate publicity. They clearly do. The more important question is whether the institutions making these dramatic pricing changes will be stronger five or ten years from now. The answer is more complicated than either advocates or critics typically acknowledge.

On April 17, 2026, Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, became the seventh private nonprofit college in eighteen months to announce a major reduction in published tuition. The liberal arts institution introduced a simplified per-credit pricing structure for incoming students, froze tuition for continuing students, expanded Credit for Prior Learning opportunities, and wrapped the initiative within a broader strategic framework known as the Ponderosa Plan. Like many institutions announcing resets, Naropa framed the move as a departure from what it called the “business as usual” model of higher education.

Naropa joins a growing list. Hartwick College in New York reduced tuition from roughly $56,000 to $22,000. Bethel University in Minnesota dropped from $44,050 to $25,990. During a particularly active stretch in late 2025, Whitworth University, Emory & Henry University, Prescott College, and Averett University all announced reductions ranging from 37 to 56 percent.

Seven institutions in eighteen months certainly feels like a movement. Yet the broader data suggest otherwise. According to the 2024 NACUBO Tuition Discounting Study, released in June 2025, only 2.7 percent of surveyed private nonprofit institutions reported plans to implement a tuition reset. That percentage is smaller than the share planning to eliminate application fees.[1] Research conducted by Laura Lapovsky [9], along with the peer-reviewed work of James Dean Ward and Daniel Corral, reaches a similar conclusion. For most of the past decade, only four to six private nonprofit institutions reset tuition in a typical year.[2,3] In other words, tuition resets remain an exception, not a trend. What we are seeing today is not a sector-wide transformation. It is a concentrated cluster of institutions making a very specific strategic choice.

That distinction matters because tuition resets occupy a curious place in higher education. They generate enormous attention, yet relatively few colleges adopt them. They are often presented as bold solutions, yet many presidents privately express skepticism. And while advocates point to a handful of success stories, critics often point to an equally compelling list of disappointments.

To better understand what actually happens after a reset, I examined 38 private nonprofit institutions that implemented tuition resets between 2014-15 and 2019-20 using IPEDS undergraduate enrollment and finance data. The results were sobering.

The strategy can work. But the evidence suggests the conditions for success are far narrower than many institutions assume. More importantly, the typical outcome is not dramatic financial recovery. The typical outcome is an institution operating at roughly three-quarters of its inflation-adjusted pre-reset revenue a decade later.

Why Tuition Resets Continue to Appeal to Colleges

To understand why tuition resets continue to surface, it helps to understand the problem they are attempting to solve.

Published tuition at private nonprofit colleges has continued to climb for decades. Average tuition reached approximately $45,000 for the 2025-26 academic year. At the same time, the average net price paid by students has remained relatively stable and, in inflation-adjusted terms, has often declined.[4] The gap between those two numbers is institutional aid.

According to NACUBO, the average undergraduate tuition discount rate at private nonprofit colleges increased from 43 percent in 2015-16 to a projected 57.1 percent in 2025-26. [1] Put differently, institutions are now giving back more than half of their published tuition revenue through scholarships and grants. At some colleges, the number is even higher. Before its reset, Hartwick College’s discount rate approached 70 percent. The challenge is that most families never get far enough into the admissions process to understand any of this.

A 2022 Sallie Mae study found that 81 percent of students eliminated colleges from consideration based solely on published price before exploring financial aid options.[5] Ruffalo Noel Levitz reported similar findings among parents, with 67 percent saying they ruled out institutions based on sticker price alone.[6] Those numbers help explain why tuition resets remain attractive.

Many presidents and boards believe families are making decisions based on a number that few students pay. If that assumption is correct, lowering the sticker price becomes an attempt to remove a barrier before families disengage from the process.

Over the past several years, through conversations with presidents and enrollment leaders on Small College America, I’ve heard repeated frustration with the complexity of college pricing. Many leaders acknowledge that families often misunderstand what they will pay, yet few institutions have found a convincing alternative to the high-tuition, high-discount model. Viewed through that lens, the appeal of a tuition reset is understandable.

Yet there is another side to the equation. If the high-tuition, high-discount model is so problematic, why has it survived for so long?

Economist William Bogart offers several explanations in One Semester Away from a Crisis. First, institutional aid allows colleges to engage in price discrimination, charging different net prices to different students while maintaining a single published tuition rate. Second, higher prices can serve as a signal of quality, what Bogart calls the “Chivas Regal effect.” Third, families often respond more positively to receiving a substantial scholarship than to seeing a lower sticker price, even when the final cost is identical.

Whether one agrees with those dynamics or not, they help explain why the traditional pricing model has proven remarkably durable.

A tuition reset abandons many of those advantages at once. Colleges that cut tuition must replace what they lose through stronger enrollment, greater public trust, or ideally both. In an increasingly competitive enrollment environment, that is no small challenge.

What the Data Actually Show

When I began reviewing the outcomes of institutions that implemented tuition resets between 2014-15 and 2019-20, one finding stood out almost immediately.

Most institutions did not return to their pre-reset financial position. Among the 38 private nonprofit institutions examined, only seven had inflation-adjusted net tuition revenue at or above their pre-reset baseline in the most recent available year.[7] The median institution was operating at approximately 76 cents on the inflation-adjusted dollar.

Some outcomes were considerably worse. Lincoln Christian University in Illinois saw net tuition revenue fall from $7.1 million to $1.5 million over nine years as undergraduate enrollment declined from 573 students to 87. The institution ultimately closed in 2024.[7]

At first glance, these findings may appear to conflict with Ward and Corral’s 2023 study, which found that many institutions maintained relatively stable nominal tuition revenue after resets.[2] In reality, the findings complement one another.

Ward and Corral demonstrated that colleges often reduced institutional discounting sufficiently to preserve nominal revenue levels. My analysis suggests that once inflation is considered, many institutions nevertheless lost significant purchasing power over time. Holding revenue flat for a decade may look acceptable on paper. In practice, it means a college has fewer real dollars available to support operations, salaries, facilities, and student services.

Perhaps the most important finding, however, involved enrollment. The institutions that sustained or increased revenue after a reset generally shared one characteristic: they grew undergraduate enrollment. The strongest predictor of success was not the size of the tuition reduction. It was not the precision of the discount-rate strategy. It was not the marketing campaign. It was enrollment growth.

Looking more closely at those institutions revealed another important lesson. The schools that succeeded rarely relied on a lower sticker price alone. Some expanded online programs. Others built adult-degree pathways. Still others benefited from a strong institutional identity that continued attracting students even as many competitors struggled. In nearly every case, the tuition reset was part of a broader enrollment strategy rather than a standalone pricing decision.

The Strada Reframe: Trust, Not Just Price

Just as I was finishing the analysis for this article, a new piece of research arrived that helped explain why tuition resets continue to attract attention despite their mixed track record.

Released on May 5, 2026, a major survey from the Strada Education Foundation examined how students, parents, and other stakeholders experience college pricing. The study, co-authored by Kathryn J. Blanchard and James Dean Ward, drew responses from more than 5,000 individuals across six population groups and provides one of the clearest snapshots yet of how families think about college affordability.[8]

What makes the report particularly interesting is that Ward is also the lead author of the 2023 Research in Higher Education study examining tuition reset outcomes. In other words, the same researcher who helped document what happens financially after a tuition reset is also helping explain why families respond to pricing the way they do.

The Strada findings both validate and challenge the arguments made by tuition-reset advocates. On one hand, the report confirms something enrollment leaders have suspected for years: sticker price matters – a lot!

The percentage of parents who identified a postsecondary degree program as their student’s preferred pathway after high school fell from 74 percent in 2019 to 58 percent in 2025. Families are increasingly questioning both affordability and value. But the most important finding in the report has less to do with price and more to do with trust.

When students and parents were asked about their experience with the financial aid process, 68 percent described it as either confusing or mixed. Only about one-third found it straightforward. Even more striking, respondents who found the process most confusing were significantly more likely to believe colleges cared more about generating revenue than educating students. Among those who described the process as very confusing, 76 percent held that view. Among those who found it straightforward, the number dropped to 49 percent. The implication is difficult to ignore. Families are not simply reacting to cost. They are reacting to complexity, uncertainty, and a lack of confidence in what colleges are telling them.

The survey reinforced that conclusion when respondents were asked which affordability initiatives they preferred. Cost transparency ranked first, selected by 68 percent of respondents. Four-year price guarantees and financial-aid guarantees followed close behind. By contrast, net-price calculators and return-on-investment tools, two of the strategies colleges have invested heavily in over the past decade, ranked near the bottom.[8]

What families appear to want most is not necessarily a lower price; they want a price they can understand and trust. That distinction may be one of the most important lessons in the entire tuition-reset conversation. A college can cut its sticker price dramatically, but if the financial aid process remains complicated, inconsistent, or difficult to understand, the institution may have treated the symptom rather than the underlying problem. By contrast, a tuition reset paired with a published scholarship grid, a simplified aid letter, a four-year tuition guarantee, and a clear commitment to affordability begins to address the trust issue families say they care about most.

Reading the Current Wave

Viewed through that lens, the seven institutions that have announced tuition resets over the past eighteen months present a fascinating mix of opportunities and risks. Some appear to be aligning their pricing changes with broader strategic initiatives. Others seem to be placing much more weight on the reset itself.

Among the current group, Whitworth University, Bethel University, and Naropa University appear most closely aligned with the conditions that historical evidence suggests improving the likelihood of success.

Whitworth’s announcement included something many colleges talk about but relatively few provide: a transparent, published scholarship scale tied directly to student achievement. Families can estimate costs before ever speaking with an admissions counselor. That is a meaningful step toward transparency.

Bethel’s 41 percent reduction falls within what appears to be a psychologically meaningful pricing range. Perhaps more importantly, the university openly acknowledged that 98 percent of its students were already receiving aid. The reset was presented less as a discount and more as an effort to make pricing understandable.

Naropa’s approach may be the most comprehensive of the group. Rather than treating the tuition reduction as a standalone initiative, the university embedded it within a broader institutional strategy that includes expanded Credit for Prior Learning opportunities and the larger Ponderosa Plan.

On the other end of the spectrum are institutions facing considerably steeper challenges. Emory & Henry University has been operating under accreditor probation through June 2026 while addressing a significant budget deficit. Its own communications acknowledge that enrollment growth would strengthen institutional finances. That framing is important because it mirrors a pattern seen repeatedly in the historical data. Tuition resets launched from a position of distress rarely perform as hoped.

The institutions that achieved the strongest long-term outcomes generally reset from relative strength. Those pursuing resets as financial rescue strategies often discovered that pricing changes alone could not solve deeper structural problems.

Prescott College presents a different challenge. At a published tuition of $15,000 following a 56 percent reduction, the institution has established one of the most aggressive resets in recent memory. While that pricing point may attract attention, it also creates an extraordinarily demanding enrollment-growth requirement. Hartwick College remains the most interesting institution to watch because it is the only member of the current wave with a full year of post-reset experience.

Early indicators suggest positive enrollment momentum. At the same time, Hartwick’s published tuition for 2026-27 increased to $23,500, approximately 6.8 percent above its reset price. Whether that represents renewed pricing power or the beginning of a gradual return toward the traditional discounting model remains to be seen. The next several years should provide important clues.

Five Conditions That Separate Success from Failure

After reviewing the historical cases, analyzing the IPEDS data, examining the Strada findings, and studying both successful and unsuccessful resets, five themes emerged repeatedly. None guarantees success. Together, however, they appear in nearly every institution that achieved favorable long-term outcomes.

1. Financial Strength Before the Reset

Successful institutions generally entered the process with enough financial stability to absorb several years of revenue pressure while enrollment adjusted. Institutions already facing significant structural deficits often found that a tuition reset accelerated rather than solved their challenges.

2. A Price Point That Matters to Families

The size of the reduction matters less than where the final price lands. The evidence suggests that many successful resets moved institutions into a range that families viewed as meaningfully different from competitors. For many colleges, that threshold appears to fall somewhere between $20,000 and $27,000. The goal should not be creating the biggest headline but rather reaching a price point that changes family behavior.

3. Transparency, Not Just Affordability

The Strada findings point strongly in one direction: families want clarity. The most effective resets are likely to be those paired with transparent scholarship policies, simplified aid communications, and predictable pricing over multiple years. Whitworth’s published scholarship grid offers one example of what that can look like in practice.

4. A Clear Enrollment-Growth Strategy

Successful institutions did not rely on lower tuition alone. The University of Charleston expanded programs and campuses. Wilson expanded online and adult education. The University of the Cumberlands dramatically increased online enrollment. Southern Virginia and Ave Maria leveraged strong institutional identities. Each institution had a plan for where additional students would come from. Without that plan, a reset often generates a short-term surge in applications before enrollment growth levels off.

5. Leadership Stability

Finally, successful resets require leadership willing to stay long enough to see the strategy through. Concordia-St. Paul, University of Charleston, and Colby-Sawyer all benefited from leaders with deep institutional credibility and long tenures. A tuition reset is not a one-year initiative it is a multi-year institutional commitment.

The Bottom Line

After reviewing the evidence, I believe tuition resets are neither miracle cures nor misguided gimmicks; they are strategic tools. Like any tool, they can be used effectively or poorly.

The historical record suggests that tuition resets can succeed when they are implemented from a position of relative strength, supported by a broader enrollment-growth strategy, reinforced by transparency reforms, and sustained by stable leadership. The University of Charleston demonstrates that such outcomes are possible, but those cases are the exception rather than the rule.

Across the 38 institutions examined in this analysis, roughly 82 percent failed to recover their inflation-adjusted pre-reset revenue. Most experienced an initial boost in applications and some degree of enrollment stabilization. Few achieved sustained financial transformation.

What the Strada research contributes is a fresh way of thinking about the problem. Perhaps the issue was never simply price. Instead, the challenge may stem from decades of increasing complexity, escalating discount rates, confusing financial aid packages, and a growing lack of public trust in how colleges communicate cost.

Viewed through that lens, a tuition reset is not a cure-all but one of several possible strategies for rebuilding confidence with students and families. Other institutions may pursue different approaches, such as guaranteeing tuition for four years, creating more transparent scholarship structures, or simplifying financial aid communications. The common thread is not the specific tactic chosen, but the effort to make college pricing more understandable and predictable.

The evidence reviewed in this article points toward a cautious but encouraging conclusion. Even institutions that did not fully recover lost revenue often experienced increases in Pell-eligible enrollment, suggesting that tuition resets can improve access for some student populations. For colleges committed to expanding opportunity, that outcome deserves careful consideration.

At the same time, these results raise an important governance question. Before approving a tuition reset, boards and senior leaders should establish clear expectations about what success will look like. If the primary objective is immediate revenue recovery, historical results suggest caution. If the goal is to maintain long-term financial sustainability while improving transparency, strengthening trust, and broadening access, the record appears more favorable.

Ultimately, a tuition reset should be viewed not as a standalone pricing decision but as part of a broader institutional strategy. Every board considering such a move should ask several fundamental questions: Can the institution withstand several years of financial pressure? Has it identified a price point that will genuinely influence family behavior? Is it prepared to simplify and improve its communication about cost and financial aid? Does it have a realistic plan to generate enrollment growth? And will leadership remain in place long enough to see the strategy through?

If the answer to any of those questions is no, a tuition reset may do little to address the underlying challenges facing the institution. If the answers are yes, however, a reset can become part of a larger effort to align pricing, mission, and student access. As the seven institutions currently undertaking tuition resets report results over the next several years, higher education will gain valuable new evidence about what works, for whom, and under what circumstances.

References

[1] National Association of College and University Business Officers. (2025). 2024 NACUBO Tuition Discounting Study. Washington, DC: NACUBO. Released June 2025. [Covers 2024–25 academic year data from 286 private nonprofit institutions; reports 56.3% first-time full-time undergraduate discount rate and 51.4% all-undergraduate rate.]

[2] Ward, J. D., & Corral, D. (2023). Do tuition resets work? Examining enrollment and net tuition revenue outcomes. Research in Higher Education, 64(6).

[3] Corral, D., & Ward, J. D. (2024). Tuition resets and Pell-eligible enrollment: Access outcomes following institutional price reductions. The Review of Higher Education, 47(2).

[4] College Board. (2025). Trends in College Pricing 2025. New York: College Board. [Source for average published tuition of $45,000 at private nonprofit four-year institutions in 2025–26 and inflation-adjusted net price trends.]

[5] Sallie Mae & Ipsos. (2022). How America Pays for College 2022. Newark, DE: Sallie Mae Bank. [ERIC ED624387. Source for the 81 percent of students who eliminated colleges based on sticker price.]

[6] Ruffalo Noel Levitz, Ardeo, & CampusESP. (2024). 2024 Prospective Family Engagement Report. Cedar Rapids, IA: RNL. [Source for 67 percent of parents ruling out colleges based on sticker price alone, based on a survey of more than 11,000 parents of prospective college students.]

[7] Author’s analysis. Undergraduate enrollment from IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (EFA Level 2, full-time and part-time undergraduates), academic years 2014–15 through 2022–23. Net tuition revenue from IPEDS Finance survey, F2 form (F2D01), same period. All revenue figures are adjusted for inflation using the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U. Channel-mix evidence drawn from individual institution IPEDS distance-education data and institutional reporting. The dataset covers 38 private nonprofit institutions that executed tuition resets between 2014–15 and 2019–20.

[8] Blanchard, K. J., & Ward, J. D. (2026). The Price Transparency Imperative: Rebuilding Confidence in Higher Education. Indianapolis: Strada Education Foundation. Released May 5, 2026. https://www.strada.org/reports/the-price-transparency-imperative-rebuilding-confidence-in-higher-education

[9] Lapovsky, L. (2019). Do price resets work? Council of Independent Colleges. Washington, DC: CIC.

Dean Hoke is the Executive Producer and co-host for the podcast series  Small College America and Managing Partner of Edu Alliance Group, a higher education consultancy firm based in Bloomington, Indiana, and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. He formerly served as President/CEO of the American Association of University Administrators (AAUA). Dean has worked with higher education institutions worldwide. With decades of experience in higher education leadership, consulting, and institutional strategy, he brings a wealth of knowledge on colleges’ challenges and opportunities.  

Dean also serves as a Senior Fellow at the Sagamore Institute based in Indianapolis, Indiana,  where he is currently researching the Economic and Social Impact of Small Colleges in Rural Communities.

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What legal (and other) help do you actually need in Mergers, Acquisitions, and Partnerships?

May 17, 2026, by Dr. Barry Ryan – To accomplish almost anything of importance these days seems to require the engagement of lawyers. This is absolutely true for institutions of higher education in so many aspects of their lives, but never more so than in the matter of potential mergers, acquisitions and partnerships. Full disclosure: my observations herein are a result of my decades as a professor, an administrator (including several presidencies), and as someone actively involved in accreditation from every perspective (including a six-year stint as an accreditation commission member). And for good measure, as an attorney for the last 30 plus years. Tempus fugit.

I often encounter persons who are quick to quote a misunderstood saying about lawyers. The origin is Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2 (Act IV, Scene 2): “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” In context, however, it’s clear that the Bard is not advocating murder. Rather, the words uttered by “Dick the Butcher” are an indication that lawyers and their functions are supposed to stand as a bulwark against tyranny and chaos.

Likewise, the skillful and ethical lawyer can, in the crafting of merger and partnership agreements, help prevent either party from taking advantage over the other (tyranny) and also preclude mutually harmful descent into institutional chaos.

So, on the one hand, as we shall see below, lawyers can play an essential and positive role in such higher education transactions. On the other hand, they should not drive the process or defeat the legitimate purposes of the parties they represent. What’s the balance and how do you find it? And how do you find the help you actually need?

Many institutions considering such transactions turn immediately to their inside counsel or usual external attorney or firm. While it may be prudent to consult a known lawyer to begin the task of finding the specialized legal counsel that is required, it can be a mistake to assume that relying on a current lawyer will be sufficient. Here’s why.

Small to medium-sized colleges may not have the luxury of inside counsel, or even a relationship with a firm that knows well their inner workings. Most such attorneys are retained primarily for employment-related matters: employment agreements, equipment leasing contracts, personnel disputes, terminations, employee manuals and so on. It’s obvious that those types of legal services, while essential for day-to-day operations, have little to do with the considerations of significant partnership or merger transactions. In fact, most attorneys who practice with smaller colleges have no experience at all with higher ed mergers and acquisitions (as is also true of most presidents, provosts, board members, etc.). These are rare events in the life of an institution, thus there are seldom any experts already on board the institution with the requisite real-world knowledge.

So how, and when, should such colleges retain experienced and capable counsel?

Let’s consider the when, first. An institution does need at least some preliminary conversations with and direction from counsel at the outset of any consideration of a partnership or merger. Once it becomes a serious topic of conversation among institutional leadership, checking in with counsel is a good idea. A competent higher ed lawyer can help establish the lay of the land from the outset, saving the college significant time, money and energy pursuing things (rabbit holes) that may not be legally possible or advisable.

These can include implications of the legal structure of the institution (currently and after the proposed transaction), state laws pertaining to non-profit entities (or corporate law if for-profit), laws related to boards and their duties, ownership types, implications for real estate (including zoning and local ordinances) and so on.

All this is in addition to addressing completely the requirements of accreditors (institutional as well as programmatic), state education authorities and the federal Department of Education (which monitors and approves or denies a CIO – Change in Ownership/Control). As you can see, this endeavor is neither for the faint of heart, nor for the amateur!

You will absolutely require highly competent and experienced guides (lawyers and non-lawyers) to make your way through this process. Some you may want to hire from outside and bring on board, others you may want to engage as consultants. Such experienced and talented people are available. Coordinating them and your administrative team for the duration of the undertaking, though, is a job in and of itself.

An internal point person should be designated at your institution, usually as the head of a committee. Critically important is that such a person be impeccably trustworthy. In addition, that point person must be able to relate well and closely with your internal and external teams, most particularly the president, provost, CFO, board chair and a few others on whose expertise and dependability you will come to rely.

As the process moves forward, it will be important to consider adding more internal team members. Faculty leadership, Human Resources, communications, alumni, external relations, student affairs, essentially all areas should ultimately play a part. The timeline needs to be flexible for carefully adding people to the internal committee.

Where to turn for external help, though? Let’s start with the legal area, not forgetting the financial and operational as well. 

There are a number of well-known higher education law firms in the US, mostly concentrated in bigger cities. Because there are many different types of legal implications inherent in such transactions, it is often best to work with an education practice group that is within a larger, more comprehensive law firm. Solo practitioners are harder to find and evaluate, which means that the typically more expensive firms, often including 100 or more attorneys, may be the best option. An adviser (inside counsel or someone similar) who knows your own situation well may be the best way to help you and your senior team sort through this part of the selection process.

Initial meetings with prospective firms can establish the rough outlines of an engagement, including the key question of whether billing should be on an hourly versus a project basis. If hourly, you’ll probably encounter a sliding scale, depending on the level of the attorney being engaged for a particular aspect. So, for example, a very experienced senior partner may bill at $750 an hour or more. Junior partners might be somewhat lower, associates below that, possibly at something in the $200 to $450 range. Remember, these numbers are hypothetical only. Ranges vary greatly, depending in part on your region as well as the experience (and success history) of the firm in such matters. The actual number is dependent on the hours billed, which relates both to the complexity of the matter within the larger proposed transaction, as well as the effectiveness of the attorneys engaged. What’s the total number? It’s almost impossible to hazard a guess, but there are better and worse (i.e. more expensive) ways to manage this part of the process.

There are a number of tools for tracking, projecting and managing legal expenses. But your inside counsel may be your best management tool. There are other options, too, if you don’t have  a current lawyer to whom you can entrust these management and connection point duties.

There are many tips to avoid wastage in this process. If you have good external advisors, they should be able to help you with learning and applying these techniques. These can involve adjusting the number of partners/associates, managing meeting participants and length of those meetings, keeping the points of contact within the institution in check, even just asking for any non-profit discount if applicable, and more.

It is important to remember that most lawyers have little idea about how higher education institutions function. Even fewer know how a merger or similar process works in higher ed. You don’t want to spend massive amounts of money just educating your legal advisors about such things, which is why is it more advisable to hire firms with such experience and expertise right out of the gate. Again, your current counsel and the external advisors you engage should be very helpful in this important aspect.

Know that the pace and scale of legal counsel during a transaction will change as it goes along. The initial discussions, the due diligence phase, the construction of the letter of intent, progress towards a definitive agreement, all mark increasing tempo and complexity. Of course, after an agreement is reached there are still a number of key milestones which will require counsel through the statutory, accreditation and related processes that lead to completion.

How long can this process take, from inception to conclusion? In my experience, Part 1 takes at least nine months to a year if done well. During this period, starting from when an institution makes the decision to move forward on an acquisition or merger, then achieving internal approvals and putting together a team (external and internal), and then organizing for due diligence is a complicated process. Throughout this time frame you’ll be using various approaches to assess potential good matches for the partnership.

The due diligence process is never quick, and shouldn’t be rushed. But the more you know about your own institution (and the prospective partner) makes a huge difference in the length of the due diligence period. It can take anything from a few months to longer than a year. Again, preparation and a sharp team really help.

Critically important in the due diligence portion is the role of your financial advisor. Yes, it’s important to have a very good CFO who really understands your institution. But few higher ed CFOs have been involved in merger and related processes, so even the best will have a steep learning curve.

To augment your internal finance and accounting expertise will most likely involve the addition of one or more external experts. They need to work well and closely with your leadership team, as well as with your legal counsel. The due diligence work that they will need to help manage is vital to the success of the whole transaction. There are two parts to this: first, producing everything necessary for due diligence of your own institution, and, second, helping establish what you need about your institutional partner. Missing anything important in this effort can create difficulties that can linger far into the future.

Let’s say you’ve done the introductory work, found and approached the right partner, completed mutual due diligence, received accreditation and other non-federal approvals and signed a definitive agreement. Are we done yet? Of course not, even though it may start to feel like you’ve already gone through a merger.

Much of what happens next is in the hands of the Department of Education, following “completion” of the merger – the Change in Ownership/Control (Part 1 in the 2 part process). After all those approvals have taken place involving various authorities, the Department can allow progress to Part 2, which essentially is an approval of the structural merger. The timeline is uncertain given the changes in policy, staffing, etc. that have involved the Department in recent years, but what is not uncertain is the continuing need for legal counsel and external advisors.

Doing all of this right takes time, money, dedication, patience and many other virtues as well! Getting it wrong, however, is painful and can be disastrous for all involved – including most importantly the students!

But what if you get it right? You’ll have pulled off something you can be proud of and will be part of a successful legacy of your institution. Students, faculty, staff and their loved ones will, if all goes right, be much better off than they would have been – especially if the only alternative would have been a closure.

Dr. Barry Ryan is a seasoned higher education executive, legal scholar, and former president of Woodbury University. He is the Co-Director, Edu Alliance’s Center for College Partnerships and Alliances, and a legal scholar. With more than 25 years of leadership experience, Dr. Ryan has served in numerous roles, including faculty member, department chair, dean, vice president, provost, and chief of staff at state, non-profit, and for-profit universities and law schools. His extensive accreditation experience includes two terms on the WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC), serving a maximum of six years. He is widely recognized for his expertise in governance, accreditation, crisis management, and institutional renewal.

In addition to his academic career, Dr. Ryan ​ served as the Supreme Court Fellow in the chambers of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and is a​ member of numerous federal and state bars. He has contributed extensively to charitable organizations and is experienced in board leadership and large-scale fundraising. He remains a trusted advisor to universities and boards seeking strategic alignment and transformation.

He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, his J.D. from the University of​ California, Berkeley, and his Dipl. GB in international business from the University of Oxford.