An Examination of Public Private Academic Partnerships: Does Program Success Enhance University Performance Outcomes?

In response to a steady decline in State funding, universities have become heavily involved in a variety of public private academic partnerships (PPAPs) in such areas as medical research, business incubation, technological commercialization, continuing professional education, and intercollegiate athletics. Despite this trend, research which examines if such partnerships actually enhance university funding is rare within the public organization literature. Given this, we focus on university intercollegiate athletics programs, which represent one of the largest PPAPs ever undertaken by universities, to examine whether PPAP success can potentially enhance university performance outcomes leading to increased funding levels. Such programs represent a PPAP because public, private, and academic entities all come together to form an organization (division 1 football at the bowl subdivision level) which seeks to benefit all three entities through sharing resources and responsibilities. Study results showed that athletic success positively influenced a variety of university performance outcome variables such as enrollments and endowments. While results indicate that PPAP success can enhance university funding, we also suggest modifications that should enhance the chances that PPAPs will be successful.