UTA Department of Public Affairs and Planning’s Post

Insights from Nonprofit Accounting and Stanford’s Financials This week in our Nonprofit Accounting class, our professor invited Stanford’s CFO and Controller to analyze the university’s financial statements, giving us a unique opportunity to understand the school’s finances. Here are some interesting details from the Q&A session: 1. Tuition and Financials: Despite the high tuition fees, Stanford still operates at a loss when considering all expenditures on students. The university relies heavily on its endowment for funding. While Stanford has been expanding its enrollment, building more dorms involves approvals related to traffic, local residents, and security, limiting significant growth. Last year, there were 7,841 undergraduates and 9,688 graduate students. #UniversityFinances #HigherEducation 2. Healthcare Revenue: Stanford Hospital, including the standalone children’s hospital, contributes more than half of the university’s revenue and continues to grow. According to CFO Randy, this growth has accelerated post-COVID. Discussing this with classmates, including a former doctor from the UK, we observed that the trend of large hospitals absorbing smaller clinics and community hospitals, seen in the UK and China, is also happening in the US. #Healthcare 3. College Sports: Previously, sports-related revenues (tickets, merchandise, sponsorships) balanced out the expenditures, including athletic scholarships. However, since the NCAA allowed athletes to earn from their likeness, many athletes have transferred to higher-paying universities, leading to the collapse of conferences like PAC-12. This shift means sports are increasingly becoming a financial burden for some universities. #CollegeSports #NCAA #Athletics

"Yes, determining a college’s future is hard, but ultimately the buck stops with the board and chief executive. They must embody their institution’s core values and the values of higher education." Boards have the pleasure AND responsibility to prepare for their institution's sustainability AND closure. Learn more about acceptance and preparing ahead, from AGB's Mary Papazian and Morgan Alexander: https://lnkd.in/eGSn3tva

"To date, the national higher education field has developed multiple frameworks of metrics, thresholds, and consequences by which different oversight entities could hold institutions accountable for student outcomes. *Few proposals, however, provide sufficient detail about how federal, state, or institutional policies can properly coordinate, fund, design, support, and oversee improvement in student outcomes, and ideally do so as a coherent system.*" Please systems thinkers, apply.

🔊Join us next week at the Association of Community College Trustees conference in Seattle featuring trustees Miami Dade College's Roberto Alonso; MiraCosta College's Rick Cassar, and Harper College's Bill Kelley. 🧩Efforts to align #workforce development to #economicdevelopment require a renewed understanding of #federal and #industrial policy implementation, including at #communitycolleges, #universities, and those who steward them. 💲Over the next few years, the implementation of bills such as the CHIPS & Science Act, via National Science Foundation (NSF), U.S. Economic Development Administration, and United States Department of Defense, will catalyze regional technology-based economic development efforts to grow new industries and jobs predicated on #emergingtechnology advances as outlined in CHIPS. CHIPS isn't alone. Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act, and even the new consolidated plans for WIOA/Perkins open up new doors - and risks - for alignment or further misalignment. We will need to ensure that workforce practices and policies across the #highered and #workforce system are integrated with these investments in a way that leads to the expansion, rather than narrowing, of economic opportunity. We didn't pay much attention to this in the 20th century. We won the Cold War, got Silicon Valley, and catalyzed the Internet, but we left many communities behind and narrowed the concentration of the fruits of these investment. We set up New America's Future of Work and Innovation Economy Initiative to bridge this gap by integrating workforce, education, science, and industrial policy implementation to bolster the American middle class. #CommunityCollege investment and capacity building is central to our theory of change. This summer we undertook some research with support of the venerable Steve Jurch to interview ACCT members and identify some initial case studies of how trustees can better tether their institutions to regional innovation ecosystems. We published an article for ACCT's Magazine Trustee Quarterly, which I syndicated over at Forbes. Scan the QR code below to access it. This work is just beginning. Stay tuned for an exciting announcement in the coming weeks following up on our launching the Accelerator for Community Colleges in the Innovation Economy with National Science Foundation (NSF). Join us in Seattle next Friday and learn more about the community college board member role in aligning regional workforce and economic development -- but especially in the context of federal investments. Amy Girardi Chauncy Lennon Kermit Kaleba Georgia Reagan Joanna Mikulski Antonio Delgado Fornaguera Dr. Sunita "Sunny" Cooke Avis Proctor, Ed.D. Madeline Pumariega Mary Alice McCarthy David Croom José Miranda Jee Hang Lee Carrie Warick-Smith Karen Stout League for Innovation in the Community College American Association of Community Colleges David Harrison Dr. Janet N. Spriggs Tracy Hartzler Amy Kuether

Talk about a power hitter lineup!

Fiscal Challenges in Higher Education Require a Plan, Leadership Alignment, and Empowerment of Everyone to Engage in Ideas and Solutions The University of Kansas (KU) campus is indeed "glorious to view" and as a leading research university is critical to the education and economic viability of Kansas and the United States. KU is working through the same challenges that face all higher education institutions. What sets it apart is a strategic plan and multi-year financial plan that includes several initiatives and actions to face the challenges head on. Most importantly, the leadership is very aligned which is not always the case in higher education. The Chancellor, Provost and CFO meet monthly to go over all of the initiatives, work on implementation, and discuss the campus communication to address financial, enrollment, facilities and competitive pay challenges. To see evidence of this effort click the link on a recent joint memo from the Provost and myself. Alignment can also be seen by watching a short video of a dialog between the two of us on the Chancellor's weekly video message. All of this is supported by a new campus wide employee empowerment and continuous improvement program designed to engage everyone in ideas and solutions called Jayhawk Elevate. A joint memo from the Provost and CFO on Actions being taking to address our challenges. A product of weekly Chancellor, Provost, and CFO meetings. https://lnkd.in/gUS3qDeB Scroll down to the Lawrence Campus Budget Planning video on the Chancellor's weekly update page for the Provost and CFO dialog. https://lnkd.in/gqYyGSi6

I can't say this enough! Governance is key for successful organizations and you'll find that most successful organizations have great governance practices in place. Community College boards are not exempt from this and we need more collegiate boards across the country subscribing to the best practices. At Diligent, our platforms are tailor-made to help organizations achieve excellence with governance and if you feel that your board needs a better way to handle this process, reach out to us today!

While attending an ed reform conference at Harvard, I was asked several times what I do. At first, I responded by saying I run a network of 8 schools serving 4100 students in Indiana and Louisiana. But then, that’s boring. Right? So, after being asked several times, I took a different approach. What does GEO really do? What’s our differentiator? Our value add? GEO focuses on achieving outcomes we all say we want—students with high quality college degrees and career certs. We do this with high school students in underserved communities most of America chooses to ignore or doesn’t want to think about, too. And, we don’t wait until our students graduate from high school to make sure they earn college or career credentials. Our charters are a means to an end. The charter is not the exciting part. Our outcomes and who we serve are the exciting part of our story. Our kids beat the odds. We have the only high schools in the country where students earn bachelor’s degrees while in high school—at no cost to them (3 have done that already and 5 more will do it in 2025). We have students earn pilot licenses, welding certs, CNA certs and associate degrees, too. All, at no cost to them. Some asked why aren’t we in every state? Well, that takes time and resources. But we are working to expand. And, we are. The charter makes this possible. It is important. Charters are indeed important and serve a purpose. GEO plans to grow. Join us if you are inspired by efforts to help students beat the odds.

As 2024 begins, public #highered leaders face a number of challenges despite many states' fiscal stability and a robust national economy. Key issues include adapting to evolving economic and workforce demands, enhancing the value of higher education, and fostering public trust. SHEEO (State Higher Education Executive Officers Association) surveyed its members to gauge their top policy priorties for the year. The results representing the issues most likely to impact state higher education communities in the coming year: https://lnkd.in/eY-8aycf

Often in higher education, we are builders—constructing bridges, elevators, and pathways to success for our students. But too often, we forget to pause and admire the architecture we've designed. As administrators, we often find ourselves in back-to-back meetings, which makes it easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. Students. This work is more than just tasks and agendas—it’s life-altering, family-changing, and community-building work. During my time at Florida State University, I had the incredible opportunity to see my work and advocacy directly impact students’ lives. Securing funding and developing initiatives —like the major exploration course and having a section specifically for first-gen students, or forming a research team of grad and undergrad scholars to analyze impact and publish our findings—wasn’t just about checking boxes. It was about creating pathways that have a real, lasting impact. These initiatives didn’t just stay on paper; they became vehicles for students to build confidence, find their passions, and create brighter futures. This past week, I watched three of my students reach major milestones and achieve their goals. They’re now real-life members of society, navigating the same world I’m adulting in. It’s a powerful reminder of my “why” and the true purpose behind the work we do. As administrators, those moments of impact can feel rare, but they’re deeply meaningful when they come. Grateful to be continuing this student focused work at NCCU. Here’s to building, securing the resources to do so, and pausing to admire the bridges we’ve created along the way. #HigherEd #MajorExploration #StudentSuccess #ScholarPractitioner #AcademicLeadership #PurposeDrivenWork