Contract Insights

Colleges, universities, and other education institutions draft, negotiate, and approve a myriad of contracts with vendors, partners, suppliers, and employees every year. Actively managing contracting processes and maintaining formal relationships can be difficult and time-consuming. This holds especially true for the many universities that don’t have a system in place for the contract management process. In 2026, these challenges are even more pressing as higher education institutions face increased financial strain, heightened regulatory constraints, and greater pressure to modernize procurement and compliance workflows.

Colleges, universities, and school systems can encounter unique contract management challenges.  Educational institutions manage a large volume of contracts, vendor contracts, suppliers, and providers of goods and services.  A disorganized, risk-prone, and slow-moving education contract management system can cause:

• confusion among departments.
• wasted time.
• widened gaps between legal, procurement, and contract administrators within academic systems. 

In order to avoid these issues, we need to first address the question. What exactly is education contract management - and how can it be improved with contract management software?

The COVID-19 pandemic has left educational institutions in a state of disarray.  In such unprecedented times, education contract managers - especially when overseeing contract management teams remotely - cannot rely on antiquated education contract management procedures.  Amidst such unforeseen circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, education contract managers can learn how to leverage the following key digital contract management processes within a scalable and centralized contract lifecycle management system to maximize their contracts’ value and optimize their workflow.

Institutions of higher education use contracts for many purposes; whether ensuring the delivery of products and services, or fulfilling student, public, or organizational objectives, colleges and universities have a variety of instances where contracts must be utilized. Accordingly, with the overwhelming amount of contracts that these institutions use, it would be beneficial and more efficient for the institution to use contract management software. The benefits of using contract management software are abundant in higher education, but a few key benefits can be highlighted below.