Are there strategies that can reduce university and college facilities costs?
In 2009, OPPAGA (Report No. 09-25) found that construction costs for Floridas higher education institutions are within national benchmarks. Similar to school districts, public universities and community colleges may also be able to reduce facility construction and maintenance costs by using prototypical building designs (e.g., in 2004, a consortium of community colleges designed a prototype nursing/science building, which saved 12% to 15% in design costs) and energy cost sharing with local utility companies. In addition, many of the K-12 facilities construction and maintenance best practices and recommendations can be applied to facilities construction programs in higher educational settings as well.
