Category: Small College

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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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Money, Mission and Culture: Strategic Planning for Colleges Under Pressure

May 11, 2026, By Chet Haskell – Every institution of higher education has some form of strategic plan. Indeed, such plans are usually required by accrediting organizations. These plans are supposed to define organizational goals and provide a clear path towards their achievement. For many institutions, strategic plans are largely aspirational, seeking to give guidance to stakeholders in order to channel their energies and to provide a degree of comfort for stakeholders for the road ahead.

The Plight of the Small Private Colleges

However, there is a class of private, non-profit colleges and universities where strategic plans have an existential dimension. There are close to a thousand small (3000 or fewer. students) colleges and universities that are at financial risk of failure. The elemental question these institutions face is: what must we do to stay alive institutionally? Strategic plans thus take on a special role for these institutions, both in their substance and in terms of their framing of the culture through which substance is manifested. Strategic plans here are central to the future of these schools.

The sources of pressures on these institutions are well known. More than eighty have closed in the past decade and another 30 have merged with other institutions.  The conditions for survival of the rest are not propitious.

Funding is at the root of this situation. The current tuition-based economic model for these schools is inadequate to meet their revenue needs. Yes, there a few wealthy institutions  with huge endowments:  there are 94 private institutions with endowments in excess of $1 billion. But these represent only 6% of such schools. The vast majority have small (or no) endowments and limited opportunities for other revenue sources beyond the tuition that comes with enrollments. There are more than 800 institutions with endowments averaging $30 million, which is almost insignificant in terms of how much supporting revenue can be garnered and directed toward the operational costs of the college. And, strikingly, there are at least 328 institutions with no endowment at all.

Furthermore, there are several other sources of pressure on such institutions. Their basic model is typically a residential undergraduate experience for 18-22 year old students, a demographic that is shrinking. Most of these institutions discount their tuition by 50% or more, meaning their situations are even more dire. Generating net tuition revenue means doubling enrollments. While critics sometimes counsel expanding programs to accommodate older, working students, many institutions are poorly set up to do so. Institutions  also lack significant distance education capacity. They have limited opportunities, experience and capital for expansion of programs. Their tenured faculty often lack experience with older students. And they are competing with a large number of similar institutions trying to do the same thing. And there is recent evidence such enrollments are declining. Finally, there is recent evidence such enrollments may also be declining.

The Purpose of a Strategic Plan

Fundamentally, most strategic plans are future-oriented and seek to show how to balance adequate resources with reasonable expenses. Since these schools are tuition dependent, most plans start with the goal of increasing enrollments and presenting ways to achieve this.  However, this is not merely a matter of growing numbers of students or increasing tuition dollars. Institutions of higher education are seamless webs where activities in one area are connected directly to several other areas. There are crucial additional elements that are not as clear-cut as enrollments or total revenue. Money  is necessary, but not sufficient.

The Role of Institutional Mission

The institution’s mission is key. Clear explication of mission presents a college’s basic purpose: why it exists and what it offers to both the individual student and to society at large. Externally, the mission is a crucial message to its internal community, potential students and families, possible donors and external communities about its purpose. Internally, the mission is a foundational expression of why students, faculty, staff and alumni should care about and support the college.

A strong and clear mission statement can help to focus attention and to attract individuals who might wish to study, teach or work there. It can be a powerful differentiator in a crowded marketplace. It can engender pride, loyalty and commitment, sometimes being credited as a reason one wishes to be part of a college, regardless of challenges, high tuition or low salaries. A strong mission statement can help tie an institution together.

A distinct and unambiguous mission statement is central to any strategic plans for the institution. Strategic plans or strategic initiatives must build on mission to express a realistic and direct blueprint to manifest that mission and promote institutional sustainability.

Unfortunately, many mission statements and strategic plans fail in this regard. Maria Toyoda, president of the WASC Senior College and University Commission, a leading  accreditation body, recently addressed the mission component underlying strategic plans, arguing that many college mission statements try to say everything and end up being meaningless. Meaningless missions lead to meaningless strategic plans. Every institution should be examining and perhaps reimagining its mission, preferably with a team of faculty, students, alumni, administrators and board members. This is a good way to get strategic planning rolling and in front of all, if there is time to do so.

Talia Argondezzi, writing in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, goes further. In a recent piece entitledIntroducing Our Lord and Savior, the College’s New Strategic Initiative, she

satirizes the very concept of strategic plans and initiatives by praising such efforts in quasi-religious terms as promising all things to all people. Good satires are based in fact and Argondezzi is grounded in hers as the director of the writing and speaking program at Ursinus College. (Ursinus has an endowment of approximately $164 million, which places it above the 800 or so institutions most relevant for this essay, but still an institution facing the same risks.)

Strategic Plans are Often Unrealistic

The reality is that many mission statements and strategic plans are in fact often little more than aspirational window dressing. Institutions need a clear sense of where they are, where they are heading and how they intend to get there. Not only do they need to do this for external bodies such as accreditors and for a hope of attracting necessary enrollments and resources, but they also need to so it for all of the internal and external stakeholders.

Time is also relevant. Many strategic plans are constructed as five-year initiatives. This is too short a time frame for the future. Plans should either be shorter in term or, even annually reviewed and updated. Time is no one’s friend.

Unlike for-profit enterprises, the primary goal of private colleges is not simply to make money. A clear mission statement underscores this. And at the same time, it is important to remember that a college, like most organizations, is a collection of individuals working together for a common purpose. In other words, the human elements are central.

Indeed, the matter of culture permeates every college. Personnel decisions – especially presidential searches and other top appointments – often turn not on qualifications or experience, but on subjective judgments on how the individual will fit in. In other words, how will the new leader fit into the existing culture? Search committees always ask this question.

Culture has a significant role in appointments. For example, boards and search committees are asked by executive search firms to define the type of individual being sought for a position and do so in largely subjective terms. Search firms then often fall into a trap of only proposing candidates they interpret as fitting a narrow profile defined by the institution.

Thus, the institutional culture has a defining effect on what a new president or other senior leader should be. Hollis Robbins has described how college leaders generally are part of a nomenklatura, where being seen as appropriate for a leading role typically requires having demonstrated capacity in lower-level roles. The notion of who might be a good leader is often straitened by such expectations, excluding candidates who do not match a preconceived profile and who “might not fit.” This sort of isomorphic behavior has a direct impact not only on who is appointed to various posts, but also on the entire strategic planning process. Getting the right people with a shared culture can enhance the process. Getting this wrong will upset the process and likely lead to suboptimal, undesirable outcomes

What makes a good strategic plan?

Effective institutions employ mission statements and the development of strategic plans as elements of building a common institutional culture, a shared purpose. Mission statements are regularly reviewed with the institution and sometimes modified. Strategic plans often are developed through lengthy and inclusive processes. The concerns of the various constituents or stakeholders are recognized and addressed in some fashion. Accreditors encourage such processes. Good leaders understand and encourage such engagement. Getting people involved is a common means of engendering support for a plan, especially when a plan involves changes.

Of course, this approach may mean a set of compromises where everyone gets something. (Setting the ground for wild satires like Argondazzi’s.) Well-managed plans are more focused and take less of a something for everyone approach. Inputs are taken from all points, but decisions are made about priorities. Realities are made clear, and choices are defined. 

The most important elements of an effective plan are the presentation of how the institution will fulfill its mission. Specific, practical goals and timelines are put forth. Crucially, an effective strategic plan is not only clear and pragmatic, but it is central to the institution’s credibility and the credibility of its leaders. Confidence and trust in leaders are invaluable commodities, and both are built on credibility.

Institutional Culture in Alternative Structures

Not only does institutional culture impact the formation and implementation of a strategic plan. Culture plays a central role in a college’s strategy that looks beyond a plan for success as an independent institution. For another reality today is that many institutions must consider possible partnerships, mergers, or other arrangements if their path to healthy independence is not viable. Just as the news is full of college closures, it is also replete with examples of institutions coming together.

As with single institution strategic plans, money is usually the key element in any discussion of partners. Institutions with sustainable independent budgets usually don’t think much about partnerships. The default position of most private higher education institutions does not involve collaboration.

Forward thinking colleges sometimes address the question: What do we do if our plans fall short? Such an approach will often lead to at least the exploration of possible partnerships or mergers. A school may have programs that could grow, but lack the resources and time it takes to accomplish this. Is there a way a potential partner might be a source for such investments? Real estate sometimes plays a central role as an asset that is not accessible for budget purposes. Is there a way to monetize this asset in collaboration? Can the school be stronger and more sustainable within a partnership structure?

Therefore, a proper plan must not only put forth paths to independent sustainability and success, but it should also at least explore alternatives. This is tricky. While everyone knows colleges are under stress and that many are merging or closing, no one wants their own institution to close. And alternatives like mergers or partnerships are often viewed with trepidation, even if seen as necessary. It may be difficult or even impossible to broach the likely outcomes should plans not bear fruit, especially in plans that are made public. There is always the danger of creating a self-fulfilling partnership. Institutional leaders must be keenly aware of possibilities and sensitive to communication implications.

The Keys to a Successful Partnership

Much has been written about partnerships and mergers as being essential to provide institutional scale and to promote continuing existence. The specifics of any such arrangement are unique to the institutions involved. However, there are three principal elements of any successful deal. First and foremost, the finances must work. The proposed financial arrangements must be realistic and workable for the schools involved. Otherwise, there can be no deal. Both sides need to do their own analysis and reach roughly the same conclusions.

However, a second key is cultural alignment or fit. The cultures of two separate institutions must be melded if the combined entity is to be a success. Cultural fit is essential for two human organizations attempting to become partners. If the cultures cannot come together, it will be nearly impossible to fulfill the third basic requirement: implementation of an agreement.

A merger or partnership is much more than the signing of a formal agreement. That is just the beginning. There are accreditor and regulatory hurdles to be faced. The specifics of program changes, new initiatives, shared services agreements and much more must be addressed. Accomplishing this means people in both institutions must find ways to work together for common purpose. This may be difficult. A collaboration may mean some jobs will be abolished or changed. Or, there are many examples of agreements that have faltered because it became clear that working together might be too stressful or difficult.

The reality is that agreements of this type are complex and take time. Further, it is not the presidents or senior leaders that have to make this work, but faculty and staff at all levels and often alumni must be able to come together. Individuals in a new structure have to develop credibility and trust among each other. People must come together.

Dollars and culture are essential

Colleges facing today’s daunting challenges must be coldly realistic in assessing their situations and exploring options for addressing those challenges, especially financial challenges. It has been said that “no mission, no margin,” meaning that if an institution is unclear about its purpose, it is difficult to attract sufficient resources to implement it. And if the resources cannot be found, the institution must fail and its mission will be unrealized.

Thus, the saying “no margin, no mission” is also true. Private institutions that cannot generate enough money to balance a budget and have at least a little surplus cannot survive for long in their current forms. Boards and leaders must face such realities squarely. And their strategic plan is the crucial place to do so. Failure in this risks adding their institutions to the lengthening list of closures.

Should some form of partnership be an outcome, the same dual requirements of finances and  cultures will form the core of a new plan for the new structure.  In this case, the partnership is the beginning of new chapters, not an end in itself.

Finances and human, cultural matters are inextricably linked in both single institutions and those entering a partnership arrangement. Money and people must go together make for success.

References:

Maria Toyoda, Many college mission statements say everything – and nothing at all.  Chronicle of Higher Education, April 22, 2026

Talia Argondezzi, Introducing Our Lord and Savior, the College’s New Strategic Initiative, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, February 6, 2026

Hollis Robbins, The Higher Ed Nomenklatura, Inside Higher Ed, May 12, 2025

Dr. Chet Haskell serves as Co-Head for the College Partnerships and Alliances for the Edu Alliance Group. Chet is a higher education leader with extensive experience in academic administration, institutional strategy, and governance. He recently completed six and a half years as Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and University Provost at Antioch University, where he played a central role in creating the Coalition for the Common Good with Otterbein University. Earlier in his career, he spent 13 years at Harvard University in senior academic positions, including Executive Director of the Center for International Affairs and Associate Dean of the Kennedy School of Government. He later served as Dean of the College at Simmons College and as President of both the Monterey Institute of International Studies and Cogswell Polytechnical College, successfully guiding both institutions through mergers.

An experienced consultant, Dr. Haskell has advised universities and ministries of education in the United States, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East on issues of finance, strategy, and accreditation. His teaching and research have focused on leadership and nonprofit governance, with a particular emphasis on helping smaller institutions adapt to financial and structural challenges. He earned DPA and MPA degrees from the University of Southern California, an MA from the University of Virginia, and an AB cum laude from Harvard University.