Chief Academic Officers have been challenged over the last four months to keep up with the rapidly changing legal, regulatory, and fiscal impacts of new state and federal policies impacting higher education.  While we all consider caps on indirect costs from federal grants, the cancellation of existing grants and contracts and the real potential for nonrenewal of existing and in some cases longstanding grants and contracts, caps on student loans, elimination of loan forgiveness programs, new ways of thinking about inclusion on campuses, wondering about the future with and without international students, and impacts on curriculum, whether control over higher education will indeed devolve to the states, and what will happen to our institutional and specialized accreditors and what it means in reality for our programs, we should remember that these are not concerns for those of us inside higher education alone.  

Our host communities have just as much at stake in ensuring the financial viability of our colleges and universities because if nothing else, the local economy depends upon higher education.  With more than 5,000 colleges and universities across the country located in large cities and small towns, often institutions of higher education (IHE) are the major economic drivers in suburban and rural communities.  IHEs are significant employers, students are major consumers in the local rental, retail, and entertainment markets, and IHEs support access to education and cultural opportunities for residents of their host communities.   When IHEs go into retrenchment it is felt first but the host community, and closures are devasting to local economies.  

Sometimes those in higher education lose sight of the relationships and responsibilities we have to the cities, towns, and villages that host us and our students.  We forget to include local leaders in the discussions about the future of higher education and this oversight can be costly to IHEs as they can be important partners when confronting external challenges.

For a more detailed discussion read the piece below and/or listen to the podcast linked below:

Higher Education is in Crisis Putting Local Governments at Risk by Patricia Salkin, Jenean Taranto :: SSRN

PODCAST: The Risk to Local Governments Posed by the Current Crisis in Higher Education - Touro Law Review BLOG 

Written by

Patricia Salkin, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost for the Graduate and Professional Divisions, Touro University

Jenean Taranto, Associate Dean for Students and Professor of Law, Albany Law School