College Building Boom Approaches $1 Trillion

Postsecondary institutions continue to invest heavily in capital assets and the cumulative investment across public and private institutions has crossed $900 billion, an increase of 27% over a five-year period. The capital investment growth rates are almost identical for both public institutions and private non-profit institutions as noted in the visuals below. For-profit private institutions, which are not required to disclose asset detail, are flat over the same five-year period at roughly $8 billion. We crunched the numbers using the new Finance Interactive, which we anticipate will be available next week. 

 

Public Institutions

 

 Private Non-Profit Institutions

 

Roughly 75% of the capital assets are invested in buildings with equipment, including art and library collections taking up most of the balance. 

 

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