Download this FREE decision guide to explore how colleges and universities can recast workforce strategy—balancing employee well-being, student success and financial sustainability in a dynamic but constrained operating environment.
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Higher education is a labor-intensive industry. That makes personnel costs absolutely central to the vitality, sustainability and future growth of every institution. The sector rarely uses salaries alone to attract talent, opting instead to compete on mission, culture and employee benefits.
But according to Inside Higher Ed’s 2026 Survey of College and University Chief Business Officers, produced with Hanover Research, 77 percent of chief business officers (CBOs) say rising health care and retirement benefit costs place either a moderate or a great deal of pressure on their institution’s overall financial sustainability.
This newly published decision guide, "The Workforce Sustainability Challenge: Managing People Costs While Investing in Institutional Capacity," explores how colleges and universities can recast workforce strategy—balancing employee well-being, student success and financial sustainability in a dynamic but constrained operating environment.
➤ Get the full decision guide by clicking the Read Now button above.
Number of Pages: 11 (5.17 MB PDF)
About the Author: Ben Upton is a freelance journalist based in Washington. He served as Times Higher Education’s Europe reporter between November 2021 and October 2023 and previously covered European research policy for Research Professional News. Before graduating from City, University of London’s journalism school in 2017, he worked in academic publishing and taught at a private university in Wuhan, China.
The decision guide was made possible in part by the financial support of TIAA.