Strategic Priorities of Top Research-Intensive US Universities

How leading institutions are planning for an uncertain future | April 2026

About this report

This report summarizes and analyzes interviews with Higher Education current and former leaders, as well as publicly available strategic plans, sector research, and planning frameworks across “very high research activity” (R1) US research universities. It also draws on data from Deloitte’s 2026 Higher Education Trends report, AAU, AGB, EDUCAUSE, the Ellucian AI Report 2026, and published strategic plans from numerous institutions. It was produced in April 2026.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, not the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” — Charles Darwin

Executive Summary

The foundational assumptions of American research universities — stable federal funding, reliable global talent pipelines, durable public trust, and predictable enrollment demographics — are under simultaneous and severe pressure. Leading research-intensive institutions are responding not with a single overarching strategy but with a set of converging adaptations: aggressively diversifying revenue, restructuring for financial resilience, integrating AI as a core institutional function, and rebuilding the public case for their value.

This report identifies seven strategic themes driving planning at top US research-intensive universities. With respect to strategic planning, typically an activity that commences with new leadership or a new fundraising campaign, this is a sector in deep structural transition — one in which the dominant challenge is not choosing between an aspirational “bright and shining future,” but rather building the adaptive capacity to survive a period of compounding shocks.

“If your plan depends on stable federal posture, stable aid rules, or stable accreditor behavior, it is not a plan. It is a hope.” — Deloitte Higher Education Trends, 2026

“Hope is not a strategy.” — Vince Lombardi

Context: A Sector Under Compounding Pressure

Several distinct forces are converging on top US research-intensive universities at the same time, creating a “perfect storm” that is categorically different from anything the sector has faced since the 1970s. Federal research funding has moved from a reliable foundation to an acute source of risk. NIH awards fell by 29 percent in 2025, and NSF awards dropped by 50 percent. The proposed Trump administration fiscal year 2026 budget included a nearly $18 billion cut to NIH and a $5.1 billion reduction to NSF. The President’s funding request for 2027 is no better, asking for a massive increase in defense spending. At this time, the OMB was reported to be “dragging its feet’ on releasing authorized funds to science agencies, using “delay, defer, and deny” tactics, even after Congress restored most of those cuts. Many agencies have also faced significant reductions in experienced staff, severely limiting their ability to execute programs promptly. Several research-intensive universities reported 10–25 percent declines in federal research funding versus 2024, with at least one institution experiencing a 32 percent reduction. Several institutions, including Harvard, Columbia, and UCLA have had research funding specifically withheld as political leverage.

At the same time, public confidence in higher education has eroded. US News and World Report shifted its 2026 rankings methodology to heavily weight student outcomes. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” introduced new endowment taxes that have affected the wealthiest institutions. The so-called “demographic cliff” — a sustained decline in traditionally aged students, especially in the Northeast and Midwest — is reducing enrollment growth that many institutions relied upon to sustain revenues.

The elimination of Grad PLUS loans (i.e., a federal loan program for graduate or professional students to cover education costs not met by other financial aid), effective July 1, 2026, adds further fiscal complexities by reducing what graduate programs, particularly those oriented toward professional degrees or certifications, can charge. Many universities have relied on such programs to cross-subsidize other activities. International enrollment — a major revenue stream for public and private institutions alike — faces new risk from visa restrictions and growing competition from European and Canadian universities. There is a growing concern that the United States may no longer be able to attract the best and brightest from around the world.

During February and March 2026, UC Office of the President Interim Executive Advisor for Research and Innovation, Randy H. Katz, interviewed more than two dozen current and recent University leaders about their major concerns, looking 5–10 years into the future (see Appendix II). They were asked about their institution’s approaches to strategic planning during such times of uncertainty. In respect of the confidentiality of these interviews, particular positions or statements have not been attributed to specific individuals, unless cited from public sources.

The views expressed here are the author’s analysis; they do not represent the official views of the University of California.

Part I: Seven Strategic Themes

The following themes emerged from the author’s interviews with higher education leaders, and analysis of current strategic plans, published sector research, and institutional announcements across top US research-intensive universities. Extensive notes by the author have been summarized with the assistance of Claude AI. The strategic themes are presented roughly in order of urgency, as reflected in institutional communications and planning activity.

“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower

1. Diversifying the Research Funding Base

URGENCY: CRITICAL — SYSTEMIC SHOCK ALREADY UNDERWAY

Federal research funding has become the sector’s single greatest source of strategic risk. Institutions that built their research enterprise on an assumption of stable and growing federal support are now reckoning with its absence. The response is an aggressive push to build alternative revenue streams: philanthropic funding, corporate partnerships, foundation grants, and, in some cases, direct venture capital relationships.

Many institutions reported significant declines in federal research revenue and have responded with major workforce reductions. The Johns Hopkins University let go of over 2000 staff, Stanford enacted 363 layoffs, and Northwestern reduced its workforce by 424 positions, approximately 5% of the total. Cornell announced restructuring in response to over $100 million in federal funding. Grant-writing capacity is being built institutionally at several universities.

Some are accessing capital markets to increase liquidity while simultaneously cutting back doctoral admissions in fields to match reduced funding for graduate student support.

How institutions are responding

• Setting explicit targets to reduce the federal share of the research portfolio

• Building endowment campaigns specifically designated for graduate student fellowship support

• Expanding technology transfer infrastructure and IP licensing programs to increase revenue

• Developing systematic industry co-investment programs beyond traditional sponsored research, including venture capital support for early-stage research

• Reducing doctoral enrollments to match sustainable funding levels

• Incentivizing senior faculty retirements to free resources for research renewal

The era of treating federal funding as a stable foundation for the research enterprise is over. The most forward-looking institutions are treating it as one uncertain source among many.

2. Embedding AI as a Core Institutional Strategy

URGENCY: HIGH — RAPID SHIFT FROM PILOTS TO ENTERPRISE-WIDE INTEGRATION

AI has moved from “proof of concept” experimentation to a center of strategic planning at leading institutions. The share of institutions citing the absence of an AI strategy as a barrier to adoption dropped from 13 percent in 2024 to just five percent in 2025. Nearly two-thirds of higher education leaders now report dedicated AI budget allocations.

Universities are deploying AI for student success analytics, at-risk student identification, operational efficiency, and research support. At several universities, AI is becoming more widely adopted as a tool in research, particularly for data summary and analysis, and experiments are underway for creating more personalized instruction.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison approved a new College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence in late 2025 — the first new academic division there since 1983. Several institutions have announced open access to AI course resources. The most significant unresolved challenge is governance: who owns AI decisions that affect students’ academic futures, and how should institutions manage the ethics, privacy, and academic integrity implications of pervasive AI use? One example institution that directly addresses these challenges is the Kavli Center for Ethics, Science, and the Public at Berkeley.

How institutions are responding

• Creating new academic units and institutes dedicated to AI, computing technology, and their ethical use

• Running bounded AI pilot projects before institution-wide structural commitments

• Developing enterprise partnerships with AI companies for infrastructure and research

• Building AI governance frameworks covering ethics, privacy, and academic integrity

• Deploying AI operationally: back-office automation, enrollment management, student retention analytics

“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” — Yogi Berra

3. Managing Demographic and Enrollment Pressure

URGENCY: HIGH — LONG-TERM DEMAND SHIFT REQUIRING STRUCTURAL RESPONSE

The demographic cliff is forcing some institutions to broaden their enrollment model. Many universities are expanding online and hybrid graduate offerings, growing continuing education and non-degree credentials, and diversifying their geographic reach. In some sense, this represents a rethinking of the traditional higher education model of dedicated study by young people to one that encompasses life-long learning and the needs of working adults. Michigan State’s 2030 plan explicitly addresses this by targeting both graduate program expansion and non-degree professional offerings. Florida International University’s Experience Impact 2030 plan centers on becoming a top-30 public university, driven by access and outcomes metrics.

Arizona State University embraces an approach that is sometimes known as “the market-driven” university, in which decisions are driven by a combination of strategic vision and the identification of constituencies who are potentially served by the vision and can become partners in its realization.

The elimination of Grad PLUS loans, effective July 2026, will reduce pricing power in the graduate programs that have been central to the cross-subsidization strategies of many institutions. Several have already begun to see graduate program enrollment decline.

International enrollment — a critical revenue stream — faces compounding risk from visa policy volatility and global talent competition.

How institutions are responding

• Expanding online and hybrid delivery capacity at the graduate level

• Developing non-degree credential and professional certificate programs as revenue streams

• Diversifying the international student pipeline geographically to reduce overdependence on any single country, such as China

• Strengthening domestic talent pipelines as a partial hedge against international volatility

• Setting explicit enrollment targets as aspirational institutional metrics

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” — Benjamin Franklin

Synthesis of publicly available strategic plans and sector research, 2025–2026 For discussion purposes only 4Strategic Priorities of Top US Research Universities: A Synthesis — Randy H. Katz, UC Office of the President

4. Rebuilding Financial Resilience and Flexibility

URGENCY: CRITICAL — URGENT RESTRUCTURING ACROSS EVEN THE WEALTHIEST INSTITUTIONS

Financial pressure is no longer limited to small, tuition-dependent institutions. USC laid off over 900 employees. Stanford cut 363 positions. Brown, Cornell, and Boston University have all announced significant restructurings. The entire “financial model” of the university is under stress, as its teaching and research workforce becomes professionally organized and unionized.

The Higher Education Price Index posted its worst performance since 2008 while expenses continue to outpace revenues. New endowment tax provisions are creating challenges for the most well-endowed private institutions. Furthermore, the credit rating for higher education institutions has declined, forcing universities to take on debt and open lines of credit to ensure they have the short-term working capital they need.

The recommended strategic posture across the sector is to build plans around decision gates and contingencies rather than stable assumptions. Institutions are cutting low-enrollment programs, increasing tuition selectively, rethinking academic portfolio breadth, and in several cases making explicit decisions to exit areas where they cannot be excellent. In a real sense, the 1950s vision of a comprehensive “multiversity,” formulated during a period of fast-growing demand for college and advanced degrees, and generous funding for higher education, is dead.

How institutions are responding

• Building explicit worst-case financial models (e.g., 30% federal cut, significant endowment tax scenarios)

• Rationalizing the academic program portfolio: cutting or consolidating low-enrollment programs

• Implementing operational efficiency initiatives: shared services, consolidated cores, better capital utilization

• Increasing tuition selectively while expanding financial aid to maintain access commitments

• Establishing decision-gate frameworks tied to contingency triggers

“The planning fallacy is that you make a plan, which is usually a best-case scenario. Then you assume that the outcome will follow your plan, even when you should know better.” — Daniel Kahneman

5. Demonstrating Student Outcomes and Return on Investment

URGENCY: HIGH — INSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY NOW DEPENDS ON MEASURABLE IMPACT

Public confidence in higher education has eroded significantly, and institutions are under pressure from students, families, policymakers, and employers to demonstrate clear, measurable return on investment. US News and World Report shifted its 2026 ranking methodology to weight student outcomes most heavily of any single factor. Strategic plans across top universities now explicitly commit to graduation rate targets, post-graduate employment outcomes, and earnings data. Refocusing on the quality of undergraduate education is also a thread.

“Sticker price” tuition is often cited as a metric that higher education costs are spiraling out of control. Due to significant investments in financial aid, a much more reliable metric, and one much less reported, is the percentage of students graduating with debt and the median amount of that debt.

Michigan State’s 2030 plan sets a specific target of an 86 percent six-year graduation rate. Florida International’s plan centers on evidence-based outcomes and data-driven decision-making. Oregon State’s plan names aspirational top-five targets as measurable institutional

Synthesis of publicly available strategic plans and sector research, 2025–2026 (e.g., specific goals for increases in research expenditure, online enrollments, and enrollment completion rates). The emphasis on outcomes is also reshaping curriculum: more career-aligned programs, industry partnerships, and experiential learning components are being built into strategic priorities. For example, Northeastern has built programs on its satellite campuses in Silicon Valley and Seattle to retrain working adult students, with undergraduate degrees in science or social science, to become computer scientists. This is being achieved, in part, through experiential learning through partnerships with collaborating technology companies.

How institutions are responding

• Setting explicit, public graduation rate and employment outcome targets

• Publishing post-graduation earnings data as a standard accountability measure

• Building industry partnerships and experiential learning into program design

• Redesigning advising infrastructure to support on-time completion and career transition

• Using US News and World Report and similar ranking methodology shifts as a forcing function for outcomes investment

• Nevertheless, improving outcomes will not, in and of itself, address the fundamental and complex public perception issues faced by higher education

“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” — Lord Kelvin

6. Navigating Political and Policy Volatility

URGENCY: CRITICAL — GOVERNANCE AND MISSION DEFENCE AS STRATEGIC IMPERATIVES

The targeting of specific institutions by the Trump administration — using federal funding as leverage over campus behavior — has transformed political risk into a strategic concern. The president of the American Council on Education described 2025 in higher education as a year of “chaos and fear.” “Rupture” has also been used to describe the relationship between the university research enterprise and the Federal research agencies. Extensive Federal investigations into antisemitic campus activities, transgender athletes, anti-DEI executive orders, and endowment tax increases have required institutions to define and defend their values under persistent attack against academic determination. To an unprecedented extent, the current Federal Administration has intruded into the universities’ ability to decide for themselves who gets in, what gets taught, what gets researched, and who gets hired.

Harvard, as well as many other universities, created a dedicated website listing research at risk and launched a legal challenge to funding conditions. Columbia agreed to significant federal demands. Northwestern agreed to anti-transgender policy demands. Several institutions have adopted the posture of returning to values and changing the narration around the social value of the institution as a core communication strategy. Seventy-five percent of scientists surveyed in early 2026 said they are considering leaving US positions for Europe or Canada, raising brain drain as an existential long-term concern.

How institutions are responding

• Developing proactive public communications campaigns articulating university values and societal contributions

• Building legal and advocacy capacity to challenge funding conditions that impinge on academic freedom

• Constructing explicit narratives around research impact and economic contribution

• Engaging boards in scenario planning for escalating political pressure

• Building endowment bridges to sustain research activity during funding disruptions

Synthesis of publicly available strategic plans and sector research, 2025–2026 For discussion purposes only 6Strategic Priorities of Top US Research Universities: A Synthesis — Randy H. Katz, UC Office of the President

“It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near one.” — J.R.R. Tolkien

7. Building Strategic Partnerships and Shared Infrastructure

URGENCY: MODERATE — COLLABORATION AS A HEDGE AGAINST RESOURCE CONSTRAINTS

Across the sector, leading voices are advocating for inter-institutional collaboration as a structural response to resource pressure. This includes shared course platforms, merged administrative functions, and joint research ventures to replace lost federal funding. The Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB)’s 2024–25 strategic issues framework identifies business model innovation as a top priority, calling for creative collaboration with K–12, community colleges, philanthropy, and industry.

The California State University Multi-University Collaboration Initiative is one operational example. Several smaller institutions have merged outright. Technology partnerships with AI companies surged in 2025, with many top universities signing enterprise agreements that embed AI tools across operations (with some controversy). The underlying logic is straightforward: doing less with less requires sharing infrastructure rather than each institution deploying duplicative services and facilities.

Innovation in individual programs, like degrees, is limited, given how individual institutions are embedded within a sector that is generally resistant to change.

How institutions are responding

• Participating in multi-institutional course sharing, shared services, and shared research infrastructure initiatives

• Signing enterprise AI partnerships to gain infrastructure access at scale

• Building joint research ventures with peer institutions to replace federal funding

• Exploring academic program partnerships and, in some cases, institutional combinations

• There is a reconsideration of who the customer of higher education is and a fundamental rethinking of the value proposition between the institution and those customers.

“If we are together, nothing is impossible. If we are divided, all will fail.“ – Winston Churchill

Part II: How Top Institutions Are Approaching Strategic Planning

Alongside the strategic themes above, the interviews and public materials reveal a meaningful shift in how institutions are approaching strategic planning. The dominant finding is that almost no senior leader expresses confidence in traditional long-term strategic planning as adequate to the current environment.

Skepticism Toward Conventional Strategic Plans

Leaders consistently describe the pace of change as making long-horizon planning feel disconnected from operational reality. Multiple leaders distinguish between strategic vision — which they consider durable and necessary — and strategic plans, which they consider premature commitments to tactics that may be obsolete before implementation. More than one institution explicitly states it has no strategic plan, only institutional goals updated annually with proofs of concept in which failure is acceptable.

The practical implication is that planning capacity must be rebuilt as an ongoing function, not a periodic event — embedded in leadership routines rather than delegated to planning offices on five-year cycles.

“No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” — Helmut von Moltke the Elder

Worst-Case and Scenario-Based Planning

A minority of institutions — but a disproportionately prominent group — have shifted toward explicit worst-case scenario planning. Rather than asking what the institution aspires to become, they are addressing perceived challenges: what do we do if federal funding drops 30 percent?What if endowment tax rates rise to 25 percent? What if a campus disruption forces closure for a year?

One approach described in detail: a rolling strategic plan led by the provost, with explicit worst- case financial models and decision gates at each major choice point. The emerging consensus among the most forward-looking leaders is that plans must incorporate genuine downside scenarios, not just optimistic baselines dressed in aspirational language.

Nevertheless, it has been pointed out that strategic plans must be more than defensive; they must also articulate a forward-looking vision for the institution, and identify its value to society and its various constituencies.

“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” — Yogi Berra

“Even with the best plan, you can never plan for the unexpected.” — Harry S. Truman

Identifying and Protecting “Discriminating Advantages”

Several institutions are committed to the concept of building deep capability in a focused set of domains rather than maintaining less comprehensive breadth across everything, sometimes known as a “steeples of excellence” strategy. This requires explicit decisions to defund or downsize programs — with direct human consequences — but is increasingly seen as unavoidable. The proposed investment test: where can this institution achieve genuine pre-eminence with sufficient resources?

One leader described a deliberate practice of engaging department chairs and division heads in explicit grow-or-shrink decisions, rather than protecting all programs equally from budget pressure (or spreading the pain evenly rather than strategically).

“I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.” — Benjamin Disraeli

Pilot Projects and Proofs of Concept

Rather than committing to large structural changes based on uncertain projections, several leaders describe a preference for bounded pilot projects that can fail without institution-level consequences. Examples include compressed-format courses co-taught with industry partners,new faculty startup engagement mechanisms, alternative Ph.D, program structures, and AI applications in specific administrative or instructional functions.

The logic is to accumulate real evidence about what works before scaling — and to build institutional tolerance for experimentation and failure, which runs counter to traditional academic culture. The challenge is that most institutions lack formal infrastructure to manage, evaluate, and scale pilots; this remains an area of organizational weakness.

“You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.” — Charles de Gaulle

Financial Model Diversification

Across the full cohort of institutions examined, financial diversification is the single most universally endorsed planning response. It takes many forms: growing technology transfer and licensing income, building fellowship endowments, expanding philanthropy campaigns, co-investing with venture capital, pursuing state appropriations more aggressively, and developing industry partnerships that include venture capital investments in early-stage research, extending beyond sponsored research into co-investment structures. The conflict of interest issues and commitment to the core values of the institution must be carefully addressed.

Several institutions also emphasize the necessity of cost reduction alongside revenue diversification — reducing administrative overhead, consolidating shared services, and making better use of existing capital facilities. The phrase that recurs across multiple institutional communications: build the portfolio, not the dependency.

“Just because you made a good plan, doesn’t mean that’s what’s gonna happen.” — Taylor Swift

Part III: Synthesis: Cross-Cutting Observations

The pace of change has exceeded planning capacity.

Multiple institutional leaders describe the current environment as one of exponential problems and linear solutions. The changes now underway are not five-year shifts but thirty-year structural realignments. Most institutions are still using planning instruments designed for a more stable environment. Building genuine adaptive capacity — not just better plans — is the underlying challenge.

Public and private institutions face different versions of the same problem.

Public universities are more exposed to direct legislative intrusion and have less financial flexibility. Private universities face endowment tax risk and greater concentration in a small number of funding sources. Both face the same erosion of public trust and the same federal research funding uncertainty. Effective responses will differ by institutional type, but the underlying diagnosis is shared.

The question of who to involve in planning matters as much as what to plan.

Institutions differ significantly in how broadly they engage campus communities in planning processes. Some favor broad participatory, and therefore necessarily slow, processes; others work with a select group of senior thought leaders that can be more agile. One consistent observation: in strategic planning, it matters as much who is involved as what the plan contains.

The human and cultural dimensions of planning — building shared understanding and institutional will to act — may be as important as the analytical content.

Values are the stable foundation; tactics are not.

The most consistent theme across planning responses is the importance of identifying and articulating institutional values and goals (sometimes known as “north stars”) clearly — and then treating those values as fixed while allowing tactics to adapt rapidly. Institutions that have done this appear better positioned to make difficult decisions quickly, because the decision criteria are already established. Institutions that have not done so appear more likely to be reactive, responding to each crisis without a coherent strategic framework.

The brain drain risk is real and growing.

Seventy-five percent of US-based scientists surveyed in early 2025 said they were considering departing for Europe or Canada. The US research enterprise depends on its ability to attract and retain global talent — both students and faculty. If that pipeline degrades significantly, the consequences for research output, innovation, and long-term economic competitiveness will be severe and difficult to reverse.

Acknowledgements

In addition to the feedback from the interviewees, colleagues at the University of California Office of the President provided a close reading and extensive comments that materially improved this document: Nathan Brostrom, Lifang Chiang, Kathleen Erwin, Theresa Maldonado, Deb Motten, Katherine Newman, Julian Ryu, IK Udekwu, and Van Williams. Discussions with David Bellshaw of Issacson, Miller sparked the idea that led to this project.

Appendix: Higher Ed Leaders Interviewed

The following individuals have been interviewed about their concerns facing their institutions and their approaches to strategic planning in an era of great uncertainty.

• Paul Alivisatos, U Chicago, President

• Joseph Aoun, Northeastern, President

• Kavita Bala, Cornell, Provost

• Anantha Chandrakasan, MIT, Provost

• Mung Chiang, Purdue, President

• Carol Christ, UC Berkeley, Chancellor Emeritus

• Daniel Diermeier, Vanderbilt University, President

• Chris Eisgruber, Princeton, President

• Greg Fenves, Emory University, Chancellor (formerly President)

• Kent Fuchs, Univ Florida, President Emeritus

• Andrea Goldsmith, Stony Brook University, President

• John Hennessy, Stanford, President Emeritus

• David Kotz, Dartmouth, former Provost

• Minu Ipe, Arizona State University, Managing Director, University Design Institute

• Charles Isbell, Univ Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Chancellor

• Pradeep Khosla, UCSD, Chancellor

• Rich Lyons, UC Berkeley, Chancellor

• Gary May, UC Davis, Chancellor

• Greg Morrisett, Cornell, Vice Provost/Dean Cornell Tech

• Jennifer Rexford, Princeton, Provost

• Tom Rosenbaum, Caltech, President

• Jesse Rothstein, Director, Center for Studies in Higher Ed, Berkeley

• Rob Rutenbar, U Pittsburgh, Senior VP Research

• Roger Wakimoto, UCLA, Vice Chancellor for Research

Sources and References

• Association of American Universities (AAU). Federal Research Funding Impact Reports, 2025–2026.

• Association of American Universities (AAU). A[mericans’ Confidence in Higher Education Increases](https://www.aau.edu/newsroom/leading-research-universities report/americans-confidence-higher-education-increases). July 18, 2025.

• Association of Governing Boards (AGB). 2024–25 Top Strategic Issues for University Boards.

• The California State University Multi-University Collaboration Initiative.

• Cornell Committee on the Future of the University, 2025.

• Deloitte Insights. 2026 Higher Education Trends. Deloitte LLP, 2025.

• EDUCAUSE. 2025 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report: Teaching and Learning Edition.

• Ellucian. AI in Higher Education Report, 2025–2026.

• Florida International University Experience Impact 2030.

• [Higher Education Price Index](https://www.commonfund.org/higher-education- price-index) (HEPI).

• Michigan State University 2030 Strategic Plan.

• Nature, “75% of US scientists who answered Nature poll consider leaving.” 27 March 2025. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00938-y.

• Northeastern University Strategic Plan.

• Oregon State University Strategic Plan.

• Pew Charitable Trusts. Higher Education Public Trust Research, 2025.

• Princeton University Strategic Framework, 2023–2027. https://provost.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf5251/files/documents/PriCom%20Report%202026–2027.pdf.

• University of California, Berkeley Strategic Plan, 2026.

• University of Connecticut Strategic Plan.