The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 2 - 74

Kevin R. McClure * James M. DeVita * Andrew J. Ryder

Bielat, 2010; Sanseviro, 2010). Baum (2011)
calculated that more than 300 college student
housing projects worth more than $9.3 billion
have been completed using public-private partnerships (PPPs) since the 1990s. Despite the
increasing popularity of this approach to financing, constructing, and managing college
student housing, empirical research about the
origins, forms, and long-term outcomes of
PPPs is scant (Cole, 2012).
This dearth of empirical research is understandable in one respect. There are countless ways of structuring PPPs in college
student housing, which creates challenges
for researchers who are seeking to do a comprehensive assessment of these partnerships.
Nevertheless, the lack of research suggests
that many higher education leaders may be
making decisions about PPPs with information that is limited, incomplete, anecdotal, or
biased. More empirical research on PPPs is especially warranted because the proliferation of
private developers interested in college student
housing has led to a rapidly evolving housing
landscape, characterized by new financing arrangements and hitherto unseen amenities.
This evolution has yielded partnerships that
are increasingly complex in their organizational structure, raising questions about whether
the benefits for public institutions continue to
outweigh the costs. In this study, we sought
to investigate the origins, structures, and outcomes of PPPs in college student housing.
Beyond filling a void in the research literature,
our primary aim was to examine the on-theground experiences of housing department
staff to glean lessons for practice. Accordingly,
we offer in-depth profiles of each site that may
help practitioners in the field as they navigate

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whether and how to most effectively partner
with private developers to finance, construct,
and/or manage college student housing.

THE SHIFT TO PARTNERSHIPS
WITH THE PRIVATE SECTOR
PPPs in college student housing represent
one manifestation of a nearly 50-year process
of privatization in U.S. higher education
(Lambert, 2014; Newfield, 2016). Beginning
in the 1970s, policymakers enacted legislation
premised on the notion that the benefits of
higher education accrue mainly to private consumers (i.e., college students and graduates),
justifying reduced public investment (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). Over the course of the
next 30 years, state legislatures cut inflationadjusted, per-student appropriations to higher
education, a trend exacerbated by recent economic recessions (Mitchell, Leachman, & Masterson, 2016). At the same time, policymakers
called on public institutions to increase the
number of students pursuing and earning
a bachelor's degree in order to promote U.S.
economic competitiveness (Zumeta, Breneman, Callan, & Finney, 2012). Enrollments at
many institutions rose throughout the 1990s
and 2000s (U.S. Department of Education,
2016). Between 1993 and 2003, enrollment at
degree-granting post-secondary institutions in
the United States increased by 18%, then increased another 20% between 2003 and 2013
from 16.9 million to 20.4 million students
(U.S. Department of Education, 2016). During
this time, many institutions pursued efficiencies by borrowing management ideas and/or
partnering with the private sector (McClure,
2016).

THE JOURNAL OF COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY STUDENT HOUSING
The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 2

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