Provosts’ Survey 2026: Responsiveness Amid Constraint

Provosts are confident in their role and their relationship with their president, according to the 2026 Inside Higher Ed/Hanover Research Survey of College and University Chief Academic Officers, out today (N=376). But, like last year, resources are a sticking point. In 2026, not quite half of provosts (47 percent) say they have what they need to actually implement initiatives. Provosts nevertheless trend optimistic about their institutions’ futures, though 13 percent signal near-term threats to their colleges’ ability to carry out their academic missions and 18 percent signal active financial distress.

Regarding the future of higher education broadly, just a quarter of provosts (25 percent) are at least somewhat confident that the U.S. university research enterprise will remain strong over the next decade. This increases to 43 percent among public doctoral university provosts, despite their disproportionate experience with recent federal funding cuts, which is also reflected in the survey.

In write-in comments about underappreciated challenges, provosts flag topics from doing more with less to student readiness levels. Wrote one provost: “How to be adaptable and responsive to a changing society with increasingly constrained resources.” Some also describe the slate of recent policy changes as unfunded mandates that are increasing compliance costs without increasing quality.

“Federal and state regulations meant to curb bad actors are extra burdensome to smaller colleges where everyone in administration already wears multiple hats,” wrote another provost. “The extra steps toward compliance decrease efficiency and increase cost—with no real added benefit to our students, who were already well served and very satisfied.” Just 17 percent of provosts predict that the planned federal accreditation overhaul will have any kind of positive effect on higher ed.

Most provosts (82 percent) rate their institution’s academic health as good or excellent, and most also affirm the value of general education and the liberal arts. Looking deeper, however, just 49 percent are confident that quality is consistent across their institution’s degree programs. As for work-integrated learning, limited staff capacity to manage these opportunities—not employer partner interest or faculty buy-in—is the top reported barrier to expansion, for 69 percent of provosts. While a majority of all provosts are reasonably confident in digital learning—63 percent believe in the quality of their institution’s online and hybrid course offerings, for instance—fewer (35 percent) describe the technology infrastructure around nondegree credentials as robust.

AI’s return on investment so far is more about efficiency than deep change, with more provosts pointing to clear institutional gains in individual employee productivity (39 percent) over those in areas such as teaching and learning (29 percent) or research (7 percent). Only 8 percent describe operational transformation. Provosts themselves report significant AI uptake—seven in 10 (71 percent) say they use it for summarizing documents or reports, for example—but staff capacity and skills (51 percent) and outright faculty or staff resistance (50 percent) are the biggest reported limitations on AI’s impact institutionwide.

Governance approaches are scattered, and just one in five provosts agrees (17 percent) or strongly agrees (3 percent) that their institution has a coherent vision for how AI will change what it teaches and how to teach it. Still, few provosts (8 percent) indicate that their institution is taking a primarily defensive approach to AI and assessment at this point.