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So much of the effort in procurement is focused on soliciting, evaluating, and negotiating agreements. On top of that, institutions might be balancing hundreds or even thousands of active contracts and suppliers. This leaves higher education contract management as one of the more common areas that get overlooked in the course of managing procurement.
Budgets today aren’t keeping pace with rising costs, and compliance requirements are becoming more stringent. Poor contract management creates real exposure. Inaccurate pricing, missed renewal dates, inconsistent terms, and limited visibility into contract performance can create significant compliance concerns and lost value.
Higher education contract management is the end-to-end process of creating, executing, monitoring, and renewing supplier agreements, extending well beyond legal review.
Once a contract is executed, there’s still work to do, and the details matter. Institutions must make sure suppliers meet the requirements they agreed to, including fulfillment and pricing. Mistakes happen and can wind up costing you more than what you committed to spend. Education contract compliance is what ensures suppliers live up to their agreements.
Education contract compliance presents challenges that are less common in other sectors. Public institutions often operate under state procurement statutes and public records requirements. Private and nonprofit institutions face donor restrictions, accreditation expectations, and grant-driven compliance obligations.
Shared governance and decentralized purchasing further complicate oversight. In many institutions, contracts are “owned” by individual departments, while procurement, legal, and finance retain partial responsibility. Without coordination, compliance gaps can emerge even when you have strict policies in place.
Effective contract management and education contract compliance typically follows a defined lifecycle, and these stages require coordination and documentation:
Contract Lifecycle | Primary Focus | Why It Matters |
Contract Creation and Approval | Defining scope, pricing, terms, and compliance requirements; securing internal approvals | Ensures contracts align with institutional policy, funding requirements, and sourcing decisions before execution |
Contract Execution and Onboarding | Finalizing signatures, confirming effective dates, and communicating obligations internally | Prevents contracts from becoming inactive documents with unclear ownership or expectations |
Performance Monitoring and Service Level Management | Tracking supplier performance against contractual commitments | Identifies issues early, supports accountability, and provides documentation of corrective action or disputes |
Financial Tracking and Pricing Compliance | Verifying invoices, discounts, and escalation terms | Reduces pricing leakage, off-contract spend, and audit findings related to financial noncompliance |
Renewal, Amendment, or Termination Decisions | Evaluating contract outcomes and determining next steps before expiration | Prevents auto renewals that no longer deliver value, and aligns future sourcing with institutional needs |
A disconnect across any of these stages increases your risk and reduces value.
There are a few common challenges that institutions face, especially when there is a decentralized purchasing process. For example, contracts may be stored across multiple systems or departments, making it difficult to track obligations or renewal dates. Rogue spending may also lead to off-contract spend, missing out on negotiated rates, or bypassing compliance requirements.
Missed renewals and auto-renewals are also common, with estimates that 70% of organizations lose money because they miss deadlines. Pricing discrepancies between what was negotiated and billed are also common.
Effective higher education contract management starts with centralizing visibility. If you’re going to manage them effectively, you have to know what contracts are in place, who owns them, and the key milestones that need to be monitored.
Other best practices for education contract compliance include:
Cooperative contracts can simplify contract management by reducing variability and volume. These agreements are competitively solicited using education-focused requirements and standardized terms, which lowers the need for repeated negotiation and review.
Cooperative purchasing can help you achieve volume discounts, typically ranging from 10% to 15% or higher. For large systems, these savings can reach into the millions of dollars each year. Beyond savings, cooperative contracts reduce administrative overhead, improve visibility, and help with compliance.
E&I Cooperative Services is the only nonprofit member-owned sourcing cooperative that exclusively serves the education sector. Explore hundreds of competitively solicited agreements available through E&I Cooperative Services.