Creditors and College Administrators

Matt Reed:

Six months ago or so, Ry Rivard and I (separately) wrote in IHE about the implications of increased control of campus decisions by creditors, and specifically financial institutions. Yesterday IHE followed with a piece on lenders trying to keep struggling colleges alive long enough to bleed out repayments and avoid the loan forgiveness that happens when a college shuts down.

I really don’t think most of us who pay attention to shared governance in higher ed have connected the dots yet. We should.

The term “shared governance” implies an “us” among whom governance is shared. Historically, colleges have tended to define the “us” as faculty, staff, and administrators, with trustees hovering outside. The boundaries have long been contested — adjuncts, for example, are often excluded either de jure or de facto — but they’ve been understood mostly to encompass people who work on campus and who see each other on a regular basis.

But to the extent that colleges become increasingly beholden to lenders, lenders are starting to demand power. And their agendas are entirely different.