Colleges and universities are in a new operating environment that can be summed up as: everything everywhere all at once. This includes political interference and market volatility, but it is especially true when it comes to financial pressure. Institutions need to respond to the moment with urgency, a clear plan and the understanding that small changes can add up to major transformation. Last week I moderated a discussion with higher ed leaders about what a new playbook for institutions grappling with today’s financial stressors would look like.
My co-host, Paul Friga, a clinical professor at UNC Kenen-Flagler Business School, brought the management and strategy expertise while Laura Bloomberg, the president of Cleveland State University; Jim Folds, former chair of the Board of Regents at Sewanee University of the South; and Kara Freeman, CEO and president at the National Association of College and University Business Officers, brought the front-line experience.
When I asked Bloomberg what she wished she had known when her institution was staring down an $11 million deficit, she said, “That we weren’t alone.”
Cleveland State is definitely not alone. Based on IHE’s reporting and our 2026 Survey of College and University Presidents, financial volatility and cost pressures are among the biggest risks to institutions right now. That’s why we need more exchanges of solutions to the shared problems facing colleges in this moment. In that spirit, here are my four takeaways from our webcast—and if you’d like to catch up on the full conversation, you can find it here.
- Shorter planning timelines. Ten-year strategies are “quaint,” Bloomberg said. “They are not going to be useful to us.” Instead, she and her team developed a plan for the next three to five years focused on improving academic offerings, reimagining community partnerships and restructuring the university’s operational and financial model. Cleveland State’s approach matches what 60 percent of respondents in IHE’s survey of college and university presidents said—they are planning three to five years out. An additional one in five (22 percent) is planning as little as one to three years ahead.
Some NACBUO members have reported making budgets quarterly instead of annually in response to uncertainty around funding sources, Freeman said. And as costs rise, financial planning and budgeting gets more complex. “Institutions’ planning has to be increasingly more nimble and more flexible,” she said.
Friga also emphasized speed in creating a plan to execute. “Strategic planning needs to be done in three months these days instead of the year like it used to be, but that way you can get started on doing the work,” he said.
- Keep the main thing the main thing. However short the timeline is, a strategy is only successful when it’s implemented. Operational discipline is central to the delivery. The team at Cleveland State refers to their strategic plan every day, Bloomberg said. “If we’re not keeping the main thing the main thing—and by that I mean, are we saying, ‘How does this fit with the three priorities of the strategic plan? And how does it fit in this current year of the priority implementation?’—if we can’t answer those questions clearly, the next question is ‘Why are we doing it?’”
Now that Cleveland State has addressed its structural operating deficit, keeping up with execution discipline is critical. “As soon as you say, ‘We’ve done it’ and pat yourself on the back, it’s easy for a campus community to go, ‘Now, let’s start growing back. Let’s replace those people that took our voluntary separation agreement.’ That we cannot do. We have to live with the discomfort of saying, ‘Now we’re going to operate differently,’” Bloomberg said.
Keeping the main thing the main thing started with Cleveland State’s value proposition. Leaders leaned into its urban, regional university profile in the heart of downtown Cleveland. “We are of and for the city,” said Bloomberg.
Friga said he counsels leaders to keep the list of priorities for investing energy, people and resources short. “Don’t come out with, ‘Here are the 37 priorities we have for our campus.’ Keep it to three: Each three has objectives and these have to be carefully thought out.”
For the Board of Regents at Sewanee, part of the execution discipline includes data dashboards that update members on strategic plan priorities such as enrollment, alumni donations and faculty and staff salaries. Folds said these help the board and the administration remain in alignment on their objectives: “As board members roll on and off of these institutions, this actually becomes an asset in continuity and really the baseline of performance and expectations around these different components.”
- Culture comes to the table hungry. A saying in the management world is “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Both Bloomberg and Folds mentioned how important discipline is to making a strategy a success. But changing behavior and mindsets can be hard. “When it comes to change in higher ed, culture comes to the table really hungry,” Bloomberg said. Letting go of the old manner of working will be a challenge for everyone at an institution. Involving all levels of leadership—from deans all the way up to the board—and giving every person on campus the opportunity to voice their opinion about the plan made institutional transformation possible, she said. “That change-management element surprised me, the extent to which we needed to tune into that.”
Leadership alignment made it easier for Sewanee to adapt to a new way of doing things and clarified roles. The data dashboards helped the board monitor strategic objectives and meant trustees could “proceed to the back of the stage,” Folds said. “That transparency between the administration, the board and allowing the board to really stay in our lane and not stick our nose in some of these things has been really great—it’s been a great experience for us and perhaps an example for others.”
- There is no silver bullet. Freeman mentioned that the top business issue for NACUBO members in 2025 was managing unreliable funding sources. “That’s not new for our members at all,” she said. “They’re used to managing challenges, but it really is the sheer number of financial threats that we’re seeing. And they’re all happening at the same time.”
And with so many pressure points causing financial gaps, institutions that rely on one lever to fill them will struggle to find long-term sustainability.
Friga said that the winning solution will be a combination of cost-cutting and finding new sources of revenue. Some of the new revenue sources he mentioned included monetizing campus assets when they’re not in use, developing new academic programs in high-demand fields and cultivating partnerships with employers.
To tackle Sewanee’s structural deficit, the team there focused on small changes to control costs in the short-term plan before turning its attention to new revenue and growing the endowment. For example, any purchasing card expenditure above $2,000 had to be approved by the CFO. “That seems inefficient and may be tedious at a campus of our size, but frankly, it set the tone for the importance of addressing these kinds of things,” Folds said. “It is hard to cut your way to success.”
Sara Custer is editor in chief at Inside Higher Ed.
