Mergers aren’t easy. In the corporate world, 70 percent of them fail to deliver on their financial promises. In higher ed—with its loyal alumni, invested faculty, deferred maintenance backlogs and all manner of mascots—the deals can be even more complex. According to Paul Friga, a clinical professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, only 20 to 50 percent of mergers in higher ed succeed. What derails most of them is a lack of strategic and financial alignment or cultural friction. These deals are never a merger of equals.
Still, higher ed leaders are more open to considering mergers than they have been in the past, in part because they see the benefits they hold for expanding academic programs, acquiring more real estate or enhancing revenues.
Every year for the past few years, in our annual survey of college and university presidents, Inside Higher Edhas asked leaders if they’ve had serious internal discussions in the previous 12 months about merging with another institution. Since 2022, the share of surveyed presidents who say they’ve had those conversations has stayed relatively flat—15 to 20 percent.
