Why Universities are Expanding by Hiring Third Party Vendors

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Universities have long hired third parties to handle campus bookstores, provide campus dining, or tackle custodial services. Now, universities are expanding by hiring third party vendors to expand executive education offerings at a growing rate.
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Why Third Party Vendors? 
The landscape for educational programs is increasingly competitive especially as blended and hybrid learning models have become more widely accepted. Universities are now hard pressed to find unique and otherwise exclusive pathways for educational programs and recruitment.
 
The recent pandemic has created an environment wherein universities are hiring third-party vendors at a 79% increase over the previous year. 
 
But why are universities turning to third party vendors at growing rates?

• Third party vendors have greater access to industry practitioners with real world experience
• They have a wider array of resources and expertise for marketing
• Third party vendors can use data and efficiencies of scale to improve learning outcomes 

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Access 
Third party vendors are more widely connected to industry practitioners who bring to the table real world experience. This experience can be translated into case studies for curriculum. 
Resources
Where universities are limited in resources based on school budgets, third party vendors retain access to more resources and experience specifically for marketing. Universities focus their efforts on improving the curriculum, offering unique classes or course material in an effort to be a more appealing institution than their competitors. By comparison, third-party vendors operate as a business and have access to resources and expertise where marketing matters are concerned thereby facilitating a much broader reach.
Date and Scale
Third party vendors have the ability to use data and efficiencies of scale to improve learning outcomes beyond what any one university could do by themselves. this goes hand-in-hand with a wider array of resources and particularly access. Industry practitioners can provide information necessary to improve learning outcomes just the same as tangential access to marketing resources can enhance the scale of educational programs.