Ensuring the Best Path Forward for Students in a Highly Regulated Sector
With COVID-19, U.S. higher education is faced with a situation like no other. Every sector and region of the higher education community is impacted. For boards of trustees and college or university leaders, the most fundamental consideration in decision-making is what is best for students, and then the impact on faculty, staff, and the institution itself. At the same time, leadership must balance the interest of these constituencies with how to maintain and find revenue to ensure long-term stability. Right now, it is hard to see any sources of additional revenue, a safety net, or other colleges and universities to fall back on for support.
With these considerations in mind, leaders must utilize new thinking and analysis to consider short-, mid-, and long-term solutions, as well as any opportunities or positive outcomes from this pandemic. During this process, leadership must consider how best to continue operations and find the bandwidth and expertise to consider potential shifts in the institution’s mission, modality, and/or program offerings. In some cases, these deliberations will need to include the even tougher decisions of whether and how to seek infusions of private capital, sale, merge or close. Each of these deliberations benefit from outside expertise and insights.
Ms. Blum’s experience includes both the highs and lows in decision-making. The institutions with which she has worked have explored and implemented significant innovations - like new modalities of teaching and learning, as well as acquisitions, and the creation of efficient shared services. With other colleagues, Ms. Blum has also advised boards of trustees and leadership when making very difficult operational decisions to transition – including reductions in size, closure, sales, and mergers. Ms. Blum has provided counsel over the years to entirely on-ground, entirely online, and hybrid colleges and universities across the United States and around the globe.
Obtaining experienced strategic advice is essential to effective and transformative college or university decision-making. Analyzing an institution’s situation and options from the important compliance perspectives of the higher education regulatory triad – federal and state governments and accrediting agencies – is important.
“Success” is possible even in the most difficult of times. Transforming an institution is both fundamentally life-altering and gratifying when doing so with a student-first focus.