Earlier this week Mark Cuban brought attention to the announcement that Sweet Briar College would be closing its doors when he tweeted, “This is just the beginning of the college implosion.”  ESPN, Forbes, Inside Higher Ed, NPR and multiple other news outlets have also picked up the story or chimed in on the unfortunate situation.  Cuban has expressed his concern for funding in the higher education space for a few years, as evidenced by his creation of www.collegedebt.com, a site that tracks student loan debt.

With student loan debt on the rise and many public universities feeling the crunch of state budget cuts on an annual basis, administrators are under a lot of pressure to fix this problem.  This problem being – how to successfully operate on less without displacing the burden on the students by raising tuition.  This is a tall task but as the saying goes, there is no education like adversity.  While use of the “B” word has traditionally been discouraged in higher education, the call to action here is for universities to start operating like Businesses.  While the number one priority of schools should be to maintain the integrity of their mission and the delivery of education, they do need to start thinking like and operating like a business if they want to remain relevant and keep their doors open.

One key area that is being underutilized by most schools is the purchasing and procurement process.  According to the National Center for Education Statistics, over $450 billion are being spent annually by post-secondary institutions on a wide array of products and services.  By nature, the RFP (Request for Proposal) process is very stiff and transactional.

Navigate Research is working to reinvent the RFP and transform it into more of a “Request for Partnership,” which would create a two-way, living and breathing partnership opportunity.  Between a dozen or so key procurement categories, universities can raise millions of extra dollars per year by harnessing the power of their loyal communities (faculty, staff, students, alums, etc.) and delivering the full package to their vendors.