The university facilities crisis of the 1990s: A causal analysis based on historical and economic trends and a case study of 13 major research universities.

The backlog of deferred maintenance for America's college and university buildings was estimated in 1992 to exceed $60 billion. This backlog is a crisis that places universities at significant risk of losing stature, quality, and a competitive edge in recruitment, retention, and research. This dissertation provides causal explanations of the crisis through examination of the historical and theoretical contexts within which the crisis developed, and empirical testing using time series data for each building ever constructed or acquired at a representative sample of 13 major research universities, and for university enrollments, university revenue sources, and national economic indicators. Traced within the research framework are the evolution of the research university; the influence of national economic cycles in predicting university revenues; university and national planning practices; construction trends and the age structure of university buildings; and enrollment trends. The Prediction Model for University Revenue Sources graphically explains the statistically significant relationship between revenue availability and changes in gross national product (GNP); revenues increase with GNP and decrease with U.S. population, indicating that university revenues are dependent on GNP per capita. Universities' tendency is toward opportunism and resistance to formal planning, and building booms have resulted whenever funds for new construction are readily available. The building booms of the early 1900s and the 1960s were coincident with 30-40 year major building renewal intervals, and persistent deferral of maintenance creates an enormous accumulation of needs from prior renewal intervals in the 1990s. The age structure of a university's portfolio of buildings determines, in part, the extent, cost, and timing of building renewal needs; the cost to private universities may be greater since they have many more pre-1900 buildings which are more costly to maintain. Enrollment fluctuations determine, in part, the number and size of campus buildings and the timing of their construction. Changes in facilities requirements and new regulations divert funds from building needs. However, the facilities crisis is not based on single factors alone but from the convergence in the 1990s of the numerous causal factors. Recommendations are set forth to guide future management of the university physical plant.Ph.D.ArchitectureCommunication and the ArtsEducationHigher educationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/129324/2/9423343.pd