A new dataset produced by Jeremy Wright-Kim and his research partners offers insight into states’ handling of deferred maintenance costs 

Speaking on a panel at the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association’s Higher Ed Policy Conference in Chicago, Assistant Professor Jeremy Wright-Kim called the problem of deferred maintenance on campus buildings “a ticking time bomb” for higher education, reports Inside Higher Ed.

Necessary repairs ranging from painting or replacing technology to renovating expensive heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems can cost millions of dollars. At a time when institutions face enrollment declines, federal funding cuts, and other financial pressures, administrators worry that long-standing needed repairs will be deferred longer, leading to more expensive problems later. In Kansas, six universities have eliminated $123 million in deferred maintenance costs by tearing down old buildings.

Wright-Kim said during the panel that “there are billions of dollars of backlogs, depending on which state you look at. But there wasn’t really a cohesive resource to say, ‘All right, across the country, here’s what states seem to be doing.’”

With support from the Gates Foundation, Wright-Kim and his research partners have produced a dataset and preliminary profiles for all 50 states, documenting how they fund higher ed capital costs. He calls the data resources “living documents” that will be updated, and serve as resources for higher ed administrators to look at what peers are doing to assess their own options and opportunities.