NACUBO In Brief

For over 40 years, NACUBO has conducted a study on institutional endowments designed to answer key questions in how these financial tools are used. Over the years, this has become the largest study of its kind, offering a comprehensive set of data for policy makers, parents, students, and the broader community in how their institutions are using endowed funds. This week, NACUBO's Senior Director o...

The financial environment for families entering higher education is more complex than ever. As costs increase across the higher education landscape, it's increasingly important for institutions to take responsibility to both make a sound case for the long-term economic value of higher education and to help families understand how to pay for their educational experience and reduce risk.  On this ep...

How does the physical footprint of a college campus evolve while its leaders balance the costs of new technologies, interest rates, construction, real estate, and deferred maintenance? The mechanical complexities of this ecosystem are only the first part of the conversation; what happens when you add the emotional ties your constituencies may have to the outcomes of your decisions? This week on th...

Sustainability efforts on campus are no longer limited to environmental sustainability. Diversity and inclusion, social justice, and economic impact — among others — are all efforts requiring sustainability thinking. Bringing leadership together with faculty and student constituencies to build a governance structure to institutionalize these efforts is key.  In this episode, New Mexico State Unive...

George Washington University Associate Vice President & University Controller Sharon Heinle sits down with NACUBO's senior director of accounting policy Sue Menditto to discuss the need to translate financial information for non-financial people effectively. The Controller's  Office at GW is the waystation for a wide variety of financial information from tax through development and research; ensur...

Tom Simard is Deputy Commissioner for Finance and Administration at the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education and he joins NACUBO's Bryan Dickson , assistant director for advocacy and student financial services. Massachusetts is stepping up to face the question of institutional solvency with a new metric that aims to better understand the nature of previous closures in the state, and provid...

Joanna Gramma is a senior consultant at Vantage Technology Consulting Group and she joins NACUBO's Megan Schneider, senior director of government affairs, to take on a subject at the intersection of technology and higher education: centralizing a new set of higher education student and institution data at the federal level. Many institutions already make this sort of data public on their own websi...

Syracuse University SVP and CFO Amir Rahnamay-Azar knows a thing or two about steam. His university's steam generator has been providing power and more for decades across the university. When it came time for a major retrofit, it came time to revisit facilities that were core to the operation of the institution. As he says, "I need steam, not a steam generator."  So they turned to a Public-Private...

This week on NACUBO In Brief, we bring you part four of our four-part series dissecting one of higher education's biggest challenges: financial modeling and forecasting in the face of great uncertainty. In our last episode, we presented sophisticated applications of scenario planning that can help institutions take their budgeting and forecasting models to the next level. In our final episode, our...

This week on NACUBO In Brief, we bring you part three of our four-part series dissecting one of higher education's biggest challenges: financial modeling and forecasting in the face of great uncertainty. In our last episode, we discussed how institutions can build a forecasting and scenario planning process that is grounded in budgeting. This week, we take scenario planning to the next level with...

This week on NACUBO In Brief, we bring you part two of our four-part series dissecting one of higher education's biggest challenges: financial modeling and forecasting in the face of great uncertainty. In our last episode, we made the case for the value of forecasting. This week, we dive deeper, discussing the process of forecasting with illustrations of how institutions can build a forecasting an...

Unstable future revenues. Ballooning costs. Shifting demographics. For some, the challenges facing our institutions are no longer posing questions about what our schools will look like in the future, but whether our schools have a future at all. Even the most fortunate are concerned that there won't be sufficient resources to sustain excellence — much less fund new ambitions. This week on NACUBO I...

American Council on Education research vice president Lorelle Espinosa sits down with NACUBO's Lindsay Wayt this week to share key findings from the association's recent Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education report. This report's findings illuminate key underlying issues facing equity in higher education and perceptions of the value of a higher education in key demographics. View the interactive...

NACUBO's Liz Clark speaks with Sophia Harding of Staffordshire University and Lucy Heming of Imperial College, both university administrators from universities in England, to compare trends in public opinion about higher education and discuss how institutions are preparing to deliver on their educational missions into the foreseeable future.

State institutions are increasingly reliant on tuition dollars to fund operations in the face of declines in state appropriations. Sophia Laderman joins NACUBO's Megan Schneider and brings the latest insights from the State Higher Education Finance report to help us paint a clearer picture of today's funding landscape. Links & Notes 2018 SHEF Report — State Higher Education Executive Officers Asso...

Institutions dedicate a significant portion of their tuition and fee revenue to help families offset the cost of college. Just how much? It's significant, says NACUBO Senior Director of Research and Policy Analysis, Ken Redd. This grant aid — aid that does not require repayment — is reaching new heights. Today on the show, Ken joins NACUBO's Liz Clark to share the latest findings from the study, f...

This week on the show, Juan Martinez, Vice President, CFO, and Treasurer of the Knight Foundation, joins NACUBO senior director of federal affairs, Liz Clark, to talk about diversity in the asset management industry. Research supported by the Knight Foundation looks at trends in women and minority-owned asset management firms— and the results challenge long-held assumptions in the field and open t...

Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) has released their new International Graduate Admissions Survey study. On today's show, Liz Clark sits down with Lauren Inouye and Hironao Okahana from CGS to talk about the study and the impacts of the political and economic impacts on international student enrollment in the United States. The biggest takeaway this year? The second general cycle of decline in enr...

Colleen Campbell, Director, Postsecondary Education for Center for American Progress (CAP) joins NACUBO's Bryan Dickson to talk about the Department of Education's Federal Student Aid proposed payment vehicle and the myStudentAid app. The initiative is designed to improve function and compliance for colleges and universities and provide convenience for students and families, but CAP has some consu...

For over 40 years, NACUBO has conducted a study on institutional endowments designed to answer key questions in how these financial tools are used. Over the years, this has become the largest study of its kind, offering a comprehensive set of data for policy makers, parents, students, and the broader community in how their institutions are using endowed funds. This week, NACUBO's Director of Resea...

The recent government shutdown had a significant impact on our nation's research institutions. Jennifer Poulakidas of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities joins Megan Schneider to discuss the broader implications of the shutdown on research and higher education.

Peter Smith has been an institution in global higher education issues for the better part of 50 years. In his latest book, Free Range Learning in the Digital Age: The Emerging Revolution in College, Career, and Education , Dr. Smith uses evidence across the education ecosystem to document the unimaginable transformation occurring that challenges some of the common mythology in our field. For Smith...

NACUBO assistant director of research and policy analysis Lindsay Wayt joins us today to share the latest results from the NACUBO 2017 Tuition Discounting Study, measuring the trends and strategies employed around tuition discounting across our member institutions. This week on NACUBO In Brief, Lindsay offers valuable background on the methodology underlying the report, along with some surprising...

NACUBO assistant directors of research and policy analysis Lesley McBain and Lindsay Wayt join us today to share new NACUBO research, a new paper in the NACUBO Perspectives Series, addressing the relationship between tuition discounting and access and affordability for underrepresented minority students. This paper examines whether increasing tuition discount rates between 2011 and 2015 was associ...

For over 40 years, NACUBO has conducted a study on institutional endowments designed to answer key questions in how these financial tools are used. Over the years, this has become the largest study of its kind, offering a comprehensive set of data for policy-makers, parents, students, and the broader community in how their institutions are using endowed funds. This week, NACUBO's senior director o...