CHICAGO—Higher education leaders need to both cut costs in 2018 and keep delivering high-quality, high-tech campus experiences. An increasing number are deciding to follow a longstanding trend in corporate America and outsource their facilities management needs, and experts believe the sector's transformation has really just begun.

“Universities have been slower to outsource their non-core-business functions,” David Houck, co-leader of JLL's higher education practice, tells GlobeSt.com. These institutions, some centuries old, “are not driven by profits, and change comes slowly.” But declining revenues from tuition and public support, coupled with aging facilities and rising pension liabilities, means many schools need new ways to save. And third-party managers have the scale to run certain aspects of education far more efficiently, which allows school administrators, professors, and other staff to concentrate on their core competencies.

“They're educators, and they're there to educate their students,” adds Ron Gregory, JLL's executive vice president for higher education. “And college campuses are aging,” which further complicates the task of upkeep. But Chicago-based JLL has a facilities capital assessment program that notes the age of all equipment systems, along with the expected lifespan of each, and creates a replacement schedule that makes long-term budgeting much easier. “You don't want to wait until something is broken to fix it.”