The metropolitan consortium can be an invaluable vehicle for facilitation, building liaisons among higher education institutions and between them collectively and the community at large. Cooperation makes the members stronger, better-managed, and more visible institutions, and they achieve collective clout with the public, the media, and others.…

College consortia have grown in the last two decades. Their potential lies in five areas: enriching or supplementing academic programs, often with new technologies, developing partnerships with new audiences, particularly through continuing education and partnerships with schools; maintaining faculty vitality; and using collective economic…

Consortium-built bridges can provide college and university planners with a crucial flexibility, a wider range of resources, and some efficiencies. They can also help preserve quality instruction at a time when the pressure to abandon it will be intense. (MLW)