Advising Colleges and Universities Through Consequential Change

Helping Higher Education Institutions Navigate Transformational Change

Higher education is changing faster than most institutions were built to handle. HCS Strategy helps presidents, boards, and leadership teams face that change early — before options narrow — and move from insight to action.

Since 2018, HCS has built a nationally recognized practice in higher education mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships, guiding institutions through some of the most consequential decisions they will ever make. That work sits inside a broader mission: helping institutions understand where they stand, identify their real strategic options, and execute the path that gives students, faculty, and communities the strongest possible future — whether that's a merger, a new partnership, a change in academic portfolio, a governance shift, or a thoughtful, well-managed closure.

We don't walk in with a predetermined answer. We assess objectively, advise candidly, and stay through implementation, because a good decision only matters if it's carried out well.

About Us

HCS Strategy (formerly known publicly as Higher Ed Consolidation Solutions) is a national higher education advisory firm founded in 2018 to help colleges and universities navigate transformational change. The firm built its reputation as one of the country's leading advisors on higher education mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships (MAP), guiding institutions through complex, high-stakes structural decisions at a time when few firms were willing to engage that work directly.

Since 2018, HCS Strategy's practice has grown alongside its clients' needs to include institutional strategy, governance, academic portfolio review and optimization, implementation, and, where appropriate, orderly teach-out and closure. Each service shares a common purpose: helping institutional leaders assess their circumstances objectively, identify every viable strategic pathway, make consequential decisions with clear eyes, and execute successfully once a decision is made. That operational depth includes regional and specialized accreditation — evidence that the firm's expertise extends beyond transaction structuring into how institutions actually function and remain accountable.

HCS Strategy focuses on consequential institutional change, bringing specialized expertise to strategy, partnerships, transactions, governance, academic portfolios, and execution.

What We Do

• Mergers, Acquisitions & Partnerships — the work we're most known for, still front and center.

• Institutional Strategy & Options — strategic assessments and financial analysis before a decision is made.

• Academic Portfolio & Programs — portfolio realignment and program-level decisions.

• Governance & Leadership — board-level decision support.

• Operations & Execution — staying engaged through implementation, teach-out, and closure.

Contact

T (305) 209-7730
E info@higheredconsolidation.com