The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 2 - 87

Public-Private Partnerships in College Student Housing

and education that we are, so they can go
right out there and say, 'We'll raffle off flatscreen televisions and all this cool stuff that
people want.'
In other words, the campus housing director distinguished between the amenities-rich
housing options provided by affiliates and
the student learning and development-oriented options presented by traditional housing
options.	

LESSONS FOR PRACTICE
Several themes are evident across the three
institutional profiles, many of which extend
prior literature on PPPs in college student
housing (Bernstein, 2010; Bronstein, Taylor,
& Samuels, 2010; Cole, 2012; Gagliano, 2015;
Lewandowski & Bielat, 2010; Sanseviro, 2010).
These themes, which are tied directly to our interest in the origins, structure, and outcomes
of PPPs, include: (a) the influence of strategic
repositioning and institutional competition; (b)
the role of the state policy context; (c) increasing organizational complexity; (d) third-party
entities; (e) the significance of relationshipbuilding and trust; (f) cultural clashes between
private and public organizations; and (g) the
student experience. We briefly explain these
themes and draw from each of them lessons
for practice.

Strategic Repositioning and Institutional
Competition
The specter of competition from other institutions and the desire to strategically reposition
for improved national reputation were crucial
elements of the PPP origin story at all three institutions. For example, ASU's first PPP was
in direct response to increased demand for
on-campus housing after the institution suc-

cessfully repositioned to improve its national
reputation and, as a result, yielded more accepted students. Similarly, SU saw the construction of new housing facilities as central to
its strategy to become a nationally recognized
research university that attracted more competitive students. Though less important to its
experience with PPPs,	 interview participants
at UFM also emphasized that decisions about
college student housing were, in part, a factor
of rising competition from institutional peers
that had recently upgraded their facilities.
However, it is important to note that becoming nationally recognized, attracting students,
and competing with other institutions were
not the only motivators; there was often simultaneously an acute need to upgrade aging and
inadequate facilities that had degraded due to
disinvestment. One practical implication of
this theme is that shifts in institutional strategy can have dramatic consequences for college
student housing. Our data lend support to the
potential for PPPs to provide housing departments with a rapid response when strategy
and/or competition force public institutions
to change course (Bernstein, 2010; Bronstein,
Taylor, & Samuels, 2010).

The State Policy Context
Data from all three institutions showed that
PPPs were as much a product of necessity as
the desire to capitalize on private-sector benefits like speed and flexibility. As Bernstein
(2010) argued, the state policy context in many
ways constrained the suite of options available to each of the institutions and, therefore,
pushed ASU, UFM, and SU to pursue PPPs.
Interview participants at both ASU and UFM
explicitly discussed dwindling state support,
which contributed to a lack of upgraded
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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 2

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