Inside Higher Ed’s 2023 Survey of College and University Business Officers, released today in conjunction with this weekend's annual meeting of the National Association of College and University Business Officers, finds higher education business leaders to be less optimistic than their bosses—and arguably more in tune with the financial realities facing their institutions. It’s not that they think the sky is falling: a full two-thirds of CBOs (65 percent) say they are confident in the 10-year outlook of their colleges, for instance. But 19 percent of those surveyed say they lack confidence in the financial stability of their institutions over a decade, including about a third (32 percent) of business officers at public master’s and baccalaureate colleges. Just 10 percent of campus chief executives answered that way in April.
