As higher education institutions are requiring more financial support, business leaders recommend that schools should consider remodeling their operations to emulate the structure of successful commerce. Following a business format, but also partnering with businesses, can position American colleges and universities to receive more fiscal support from policymakers and state legislators.
According to Steve Halverson, CEO of the Haskell Company and chair of the Florida Council 100, business leadership and higher education institutions are considered “natural allies.” Since the interests of business, such as for-profit growth, are closely tied to higher education, partnering with business is necessary to yield higher earnings. However, in order to gain a relationship, higher education must change its platform as a profitable business.
“Businesses are consumers of the products of higher education. [Higher education institutions] produce talent in intellectual capital that is consumed in business and put to productive use in society,” Halverson explained.
In partnering with businesses, schools can adopt the prevalent elements of their operational practices that maintain a healthy flow of funding. According to Halverson, the most critical component that businesses use in trying to increase funding is arguing a case around economic development, one that showcases an organization’s potential to contribute to and produce an effective economy. For education facilities, that argument lies in its ability to produce “intellectual capital.” As a result, financial supporters, including policymakers and state legislators, find the value in higher education as profitable, generating a crafted workforce that enables great monetary growth.
“During and after the recession, never have state legislators and policymakers been more in tune with and receptive to messages about economic development. Once schools start talking about that and job growth, then you’ll have them listening,” Halverson commented.
Amid economic development, colleges also need to address the issue of low-cost growth. The Association of Public Land-Grant Universities (APLU) reported colleges and universities as entities that endured a 6.4 percent growth — compounded annually, for the costs of higher education. Halverson recognized this as “strange credulity” on behalf of post-secondary institutions because the financial model is not one that represents a strong, sustaining business.
