$10 billion could be unlocked in uni property assets, claims EY report

What a load of crap – the universities need to build more critical activity and interactions not less that arises from decentralisation and strips ownerhip. Its a shallow, short term gain recipe that in the longer term will bankrupt many universities. Developing nations have such campuses already… and they are trying to move away from that as their wealth grows.

Based on E&Y’s rationale, cities should be shrinking as well and there should be no housing crisis, since people can work remotely and move to where land is cheap. Yet the popularity of urban areas keeps growing, because people like to be around other people. Further, there is a positive effect to being around other intelligent, dynamic people. The random interactions that happen when people bump into each other and have serendipitous conversations add value. For these reasons, we are even starting to see some companies that had encouraged people to work from home to start requiring more people to come in to the office. For similar reasons, I do not buy the argument that the demand for university campuses will shrink dramatically. Perhaps E&Y is hoping that if it convinces university managers to buy this argument, it then can obtain the advisory work that such downsizing would generate. Don’t fall for it.

PS. I find it interesting that many of the top US universities, including my two alma maters, Penn and Columbia, have EXPANDED their campus footprints in the past few years by purchasing additional land near their campuses and developing additional facilities. For example, Columbia is currently in the midst of a massive expansion into Harlem and Penn has built a number of new facilities that have extended the campus boundaries towards the Schuylkill River. What does that tell you?