When Pender County Schools in North Carolina needed to purchase 2,000 laptops for mandated testing requirements, they encountered something unexpected. Multiple vendors submitted competitive bids but refused to honor their quoted prices without immediate decisions, citing tariff concerns. Ultimately, the school board was forced to approve a higher bid of more than $700,000 to secure the needed technology or risk prices rising even further. While this example comes from a K–12 district, colleges and universities across the country are facing similar challenges, as supply chain instability and shifting tariffs continue to disrupt procurement planning in higher education.
While many anticipated tariffs haven’t fully gone into effect, their possibility is already disrupting normal purchasing processes and budget planning for educational institutions.
As tariffs reshape the procurement landscape, higher education institutions need strategic approaches to navigate these challenges. Cooperative buying can help educational institutions with stability and cost control.
Tariffs are essentially taxes imposed on imported goods and services. When a country implements tariffs, it directly increases the cost of affected products entering the country. For higher education institutions that rely heavily on a wide range of imported goods, these additional costs can strain budgets even further.
Key categories facing potential or actual tariff impacts include:
For institutions with building projects, the impact could be profound. While those with projects already under contract may escape significant price hikes if they have a fixed-price or maximum-price contract, future projects could get more expensive. Ken Simonson, Chief Economist for the Associated General Contractors of America, said U.S. steel mills don’t currently have the production capacity to offset the impact, and things like aluminum, copper, and even cement will need to continue to be imported.
State revenue allocated to public institutions, including colleges and universities, could also decline during an economic downturn, as tax collections stagnate. At the same time, public pension funds—which are already under pressure—may fall short of actuarial projections, requiring states to increase contributions and divert funds from other budget areas, including higher education. For example, Alabama lost $1 billion in its public pension investments when tariffs were announced. A broader analysis by the Equable Institute found that between April 3 and April 9, the nation’s 25 largest public pension funds lost a combined $169 billion.
When funding is reduced and operational costs rise unexpectedly due to tariffs or supply chain issues, colleges and universities face difficult choices: absorb the additional costs, reduce spending in other areas, or pass some of the burden onto students through higher tuition or fees.
The implications of tariffs extend beyond price increases.
Higher education financial officers typically develop budgets and financial projections years in advance. Sudden tariff increases can undermine careful planning and force difficult decisions. This is especially troubling when colleges and universities are already under intense pressure to reduce costs and facing threats to endowments, NIH grants, and other federal funding. Institutions have already hiring freezes as they brace for federal cuts regardless of what happens with tariffs.
Campus improvement initiatives, technology upgrades, and research facility developments often operate on tight margins. When tariffs push costs beyond allocated budgets, projects may face delays, scaled-back scope, or even cancellation.
Considering that colleges and universities already have a backlog of deferred capital projects totaling between $750 billion and $950 billion, this could push projects even further down the line, while increasing maintenance costs for aging infrastructure.
Strategic Purchasing Behaviors
Procurement teams are being forced to make faster decisions, sometimes at higher prices, to lock in costs before potential tariff implementations drive prices higher.
In today’s procurement environment, cooperative buying can be a key strategy for institutions looking to mitigate the impact of tariffs in higher education.
By aggregating demand across multiple institutions, cooperative purchasing organizations can negotiate more favorable terms with suppliers, potentially offsetting some tariff-related increases. This collective approach often results in pricing advantages unavailable to individual institutions.
Cooperative organizations invest in market intelligence about pricing trends, supply chain disruptions, and tariff impacts. This insight helps member institutions make better decisions about when to purchase, what alternatives exist, and how to plan for future procurements.
Cooperatives often secure contracts with protective clauses regarding price increases, supply guarantees, and tariff pass-throughs. These protections can provide higher education institutions with greater stability in uncertain times.
Cooperative agreements are competitively solicited and often have built-in price locks or scheduled price resets to help you budget.
Cooperative purchasing agreements can give institutions access to a broader, more geographically diverse supplier base—without having to forge those relationships independently. This built-in supply chain flexibility helps colleges and universities source goods from regions less affected by specific tariffs, reducing risk and ensuring more stable pricing in volatile global markets.
You may need to move quickly to avoid tariff price hikes. Pre-negotiated cooperative agreements enable you to shorten the procurement cycle and adopt existing contracts at current prices. However, timing may be critical.
Higher education finance and procurement teams should:
E&I Cooperative Services is the only member-owned non-profit sourcing cooperative exclusively focused on education. We provide competitively solicited contracts and innovative procurement solutions that help your institution save time, reduce costs, and stay compliant. View available contracts and see where you can lock in prices.
