Dive Brief:
- Income share agreements (ISAs) are a new way colleges can yield income, acting as a lender for students while enrolled and receiving a percentage of earned income after graduates earn stable jobs, according to a new report from the American Enterprise Institute.
- Private funding of campus-based bootcamps and startups can also generate sustainable income for campuses, and can help position the campus as a workforce development resource.
- Risk-sharing could be an extension of ISAs, which researchers say would force colleges to be more aggressive about job placement, postgraduate outcomes.
Dive Insight:
Federal education officials are already endorsing ideas about colleges sharing financial risk with students and graduates, but colleges can be even more strategic about the risk by engaging corporate partners on the front end of alternative revenue planning.
Arizona State University has already laid the foundation for this kind of entrepreneurial development with nonprofit ventures in research and real estate. Allowing businesses to have a say about mixed-use facilities, mobile app development and patents on campus could make a world of difference in positioning a campus as a corporation beyond higher education.