We Need to Consult About Consulting

Over the last decade, and especially lately, my university, Pennsylvania State University, has been writing a lot of checks to consulting firms. In 2018, the university hired the Huron Consulting Group to find “greater operational efficiencies across the University.” In 2024, it employed Hanover Research to assist with “data and insights” for a sweeping academic portfolio and program review. And just last April, it enlisted McKinsey & Company “to identify opportunity areas that will drive the University’s strategic choices over the next 12 to 36 months.” These “opportunity areas” include the changes proposed by the academic portfolio and program review. That’s right. Penn State hired one consultant, at least in part, to advise it about what another consultant advised it to do.

Although Penn State has not disclosed how much it has paid the consulting firms, the cost has likely run into the millions if not tens of millions of dollars.

Of course, Penn State is not alone in its fondness for outside consultants. Between 2019 and 2023, the University of Wisconsin system paid Huron Consulting at least $51 million. In 2020, the New School famously hired Huron to guide it through its $130 million budget shortfall. And during his brief stint as president of the University of Florida, former Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse directed $4.7 million to McKinsey & Company. I could go on.

Most of the consulting groups are private companies, but one, Huron, is publicly traded. You can ballpark the growth in higher education consulting by examining the Huron bottom line. In 2021, its education division—it also does commercial and health-care consulting—reported $242.4 million in revenue. In 2025, the revenue from that division had more than doubled, to $500.2 million. In line with that growth, the Huron stock price has also more than doubled over the last decade.

There is an irony here. As colleges and universities face increasing financial pressures, they often turn to consultants for guidance. In doing so, they worsen their financial pressures. They are spending money to learn how to keep from spending it.

This dynamic—university faces turning point, hires outside consultant—has become so common that its strangeness can go unnoticed. Yet it is strange. Universities did not behave this way in the past. More to the point, they do not have to. They have other, better options.

Here is what makes higher education and its fondness for consultants so strange. Universities, especially research-intensive universities like Penn State, have some of the greatest concentrations of talent and intelligence on earth. The Smeal College of Business at Penn State is one of the top-ranked business schools in the country. U.S. News & World Report ranks the Penn State College of Education fourth (fourth!) in higher education administration. The college my department belongs to, liberal arts, has phenomenal faculty in philosophy, economics, rhetoric and other disciplines whose expertise would come in handy during a critical moment.

So, what does it say when a university like Penn State needs to change course and looks to outside consultants to tell it which way to go? It says, I think, that the university does not trust its own scholars to guide its decisions. Mind you, these are scholars it has recruited from the best institutions of higher education in the country. Scholars it has subjected to a rigorous tenure and promotion process. Scholars who occasionally do their own consulting. Scholars who are eager to serve their universities. And scholars who train students for jobs at some of the most prestigious companies in the world—including at consulting firms like Huron, Hanover and McKinsey!

Universities are literally in the business of producing knowledge. So why are they paying someone else for it? The Ford Motor Company does not hire General Motors to make cars for them.

I do not object, not really, to anything that any of the consulting firms advised Penn State to do. In 2018, Huron really did help Penn State identify opportunities for savings. And the academic portfolio and program review that Hanover aided with was, well, fine. True, it made some mistakes. The team leading the review expressed skepticism about some bachelor of science degrees in the humanities that cost those departments virtually nothing to offer but that did occasionally attract double majors from outside a college. Perhaps if the university had relied on data produced by someone who knew more about Penn State, or more about how universities work, they would not have made that mistake. They also worked from some questionable assumptions about the relationship between the degree a student earns and the job they go on to hold. Otherwise, the review was exactly what you would expect. It found that some programs are thriving, others are doing less well, and recommended that Penn State should direct resources to the thriving ones and close or consolidate the struggling ones. Fine.

My bigger objection is to the process. I feel confident that, given access to the right data, a handpicked group of faculty from Penn State could have produced equally good if not better research than any consultant. These faculty would not have cost tens of millions of dollars, either. Tens of course releases, maybe. And the money the university would have spent on consultants could have been spent instead on solving the problems that led it to seek out consultants in the first place.

If faculty can do what consultants do, and maybe do it better, why are universities so reluctant to look inward for guidance? A couple of reasons. The first are psychological and, admittedly, speculative. First, it would be surprising if administrators did not succumb to the air of casual expertise that consulting firms robe themselves in. (“Make decisions with confidence, not guesswork,” Hanover Research promises those who take advantage of its services.) If so, then administrators may believe that employing outside consultants makes them appear serious about a problem. Look at us, fellow businesspeople! We are making decisions with confidence, not guesswork. Second, turning to a consultant can insulate administrators from criticism if what they choose to do fails. Don’t blame us! We did what the consultants told us to.

Setting psychology aside, it could be that consulting firms have access to data that a university does not. Perhaps, like an experienced doctor, they have seen it all before, in which case they really do have singular expertise that no one, not even world-class faculty, can provide. And maybe university administrators believe that their own faculty could not provide the objective, coldblooded advice that a situation requires. Would faculty really advise closing a struggling program? One that employed their colleagues? Or would their soft hearts keep them from making the tough decisions?

I would like to chip away at the psychological reasons by addressing the second two reasons. As for data, it is cheap—and more readily available than ever. Moreover, one can find out what other institutions in similar situations did not by paying a consulting firm but by examining what those institutions did—and whether it worked. Faculty study problems like this all the time. It is what we are trained to do, and we are really, really good at it.  

I also think faculty are capable of setting aside their collegiality to aim for the good of the institution. Speaking as an administrator—I am in my second year as department head—I make tough-minded decisions all the time. Decisions that I agonize over. But decisions that I accept are best for the department. And I am not alone. Everyone associated with a university has its well-being in mind, including, maybe especially, its faculty.

Hiring a consultant should be a last resort, not the first. In such a world, universities would find themselves writing fewer checks—and probably getting better advice.