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Regional compact frames role amid funding, enrollment pressures
Summary
Speakers described how the Midwestern Higher Education Compact supports states through convenings, bulk purchasing and reciprocity and warned that declining funding and a post-COVID demographic cliff are pressing challenges for regional higher education.
Speaker 1, Presenter, opened by describing the organization as "an interstate compact, which means states do business with other states without the federal government's involvement." He said the Compact provides value by saving money on insurance and textbooks and by "convening groups across the Midwest to problem solve and deal with the pressing issues that they're facing."
Speaker 1 placed the Compact's work in the context of two major headwinds: "decreased funding" for higher education and a "demographic cliff," which he said COVID has made worse. He warned that declining birth rates and fewer people choosing to go to college combine to create "a really big challenge" and argued that the region must emphasize credentials beyond high school.
Other presenters outlined how the Compact's collective work delivers that value. Speaker 2 contrasted individual institutional approaches with joint action, saying cooperative functions such as bulk purchasing, contracting efficiencies and reciprocity "make it easier on all of us to focus on the students." Speaker 3 praised the Compact's convenings in Des Moines, Cleveland and Minneapolis as efficient ways to broaden participants' view of the region, and Speaker 4 called relationships formed at those convenings "critically important" for sharing programs and policy ideas. Speaker 5 added that technology and networked communication have made regional collaboration more feasible and necessary.
The presenters emphasized a nonpartisan approach: "Our work has to be non partisan because we need it to resonate no matter who's in power in a state or in a region," Speaker 1 said, arguing that nonpartisan framing opens conversations among stakeholders who otherwise might not meet.
The presentation did not include formal policy changes, votes, or detailed program delivery plans; most statements were descriptive of the Compact's role, recent initiatives and challenges facing member states.
