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The word cooperative comes up regularly on campuses, but can mean completely different things. Although they share a similar context in working together, cooperative education programs are vastly different than cooperative procurement.
So, when you’re talking about cooperatives with educators and administrators, you’ll want to clarify which type of cooperative program you’re talking about so they understand when you’re talking about procurement.
A cooperative education program is an academic model that incorporates work experiences as part of a student’s journey to earn their degree. While similar to an internship, a cooperative education program typically involves longer work rotations, and paid placements closely aligned to a student’s major.
This helps students to get hands-on, real-world experience and develop their professional skills while still in college. It’s a great resume builder and often leads to job opportunities right after graduation.
Depending on the institution and degree programs offered, these programs can be quite large. For example, the University of Cincinnati placed more than 8,300 students with 1,757 employers this past school year.
Purchasing cooperatives, however, are completely different.
When you are discussing cooperative programs in terms of procurement, you’re talking about combining the purchasing power of multiple institutions to achieve volume discounts and streamline procurement. Cooperatives competitively solicit goods and services on behalf of their members and negotiate standardized contract terms.
While each institution can independently decide which cooperative contracts it wants to use, it gets the benefit of aggregated demand across hundreds or thousands of campuses to secure more favorable pricing and terms.
Cost savings are often substantial. Many institutions find they can lower overall costs by 10% to 15% compared to negotiating contracts on their own. At the same time, this decreases indirect costs, like the time it takes to issue and manage RFPs. You can often reduce the cycle time from months to days while remaining compliant.
As you can see, it’s an apples–oranges comparison. These two concepts may share a word, but they serve distinctly different functions.
Cooperative Education Programs | Purchasing Cooperatives | |
Primary Purpose | Provide students with structured, real-world learning opportunities | Support institutions with competitively solicited contracts and sourcing efficiency |
Stakeholders | Students, faculty, academic departments, employers | Procurement teams, finance offices, suppliers, buyers |
Activities | Work placements, alternating terms, career development | Competitive solicitations, contract management, supplier negotiations |
Institutional Alignment | Academic affairs | Procurement, finance, and operations |
Outcomes | Student skill development and employer connections | Cost savings, compliance, speed, and improved supplier performance |
There are significant benefits from partnering with a national purchasing cooperative or group purchasing organization (GPO), including:
E&I Cooperative Services is the only member-owned, nonprofit sourcing cooperative dedicated exclusively to education. E&I provides procurement teams with nationwide access to competitively solicited contracts tailored specifically to the unique needs of educational institutions, serving as an extension of your procurement team and helping to streamline purchasing.
Becoming a member of E&I Cooperative Services helps elevate the role of procurement team members. The procurement professionals at E&I handle much of the heavy lifting in the sourcing and negotiating phase, allowing team members to move from transactional buying to strategic planning.
You also benefit from a wide range of additional services. For example:
Membership is free, with no minimum purchasing requirements. Become a member today.