Sep 1, 2026
State of Our Industry
This briefing comes from the same conviction that fuels everything we do: independent education is worth protecting.
Every board should be reviewing this before fall planning begins. It’s a short briefing on the existential threats facing independent schools and colleges — demographic shifts, affordability pressure, AI, financial fragility — and the leadership and best practices required to meet the moment. It’s short and built to be read in one sitting, ahead of the conversations your board is about to have throughout this fall.
Independence is the most important asset these institutions have — the freedom to be creative when the system rewards convention, distinctive when the market rewards sameness. That freedom is rare, and it’s rarely lost to a single crisis. Institutions lose it one safe choice at a time, until the thing that made them distinct has quietly disappeared. Protecting it takes clarity about what an institution does uniquely well, and leadership stable enough to carry a strategy through its hardest, most uncertain stretch.