Education real estate has become increasingly complex, shaped by shifting enrollment, funding constraints, changing demographics, and growing scrutiny of traditional education models.

In this Q&A, Todd Noel, Vice Chair, sits down with Anjee Solanki, National Director of Retail and Practice Groups | U.S., to discuss the forces reshaping the sector and why institutions may need to rethink how real estate supports their mission, operations, and long-term strategy.

Anjee Solanki (AS): When people think about education, they might picture a college campus or a school district. How would you define the education real estate sector today, and the scope of your practice?

Todd Noel (TN): Education is one of the essential systems communities and economies rely on, and its real estate spans the full education lifecycle, from early education centers and private K-12 schools to public charter schools, higher education institutions, and post-secondary programs. It also covers a wide range of asset types, including campuses, student housing, classroom buildings, and lab space.

Our Education Practice Group is a national platform that helps operators and owners reposition and monetize assets, solve occupancy and growth challenges, and access institutional capital for this niche asset class. Our work includes site acquisition, sale-leasebacks, build-to-suit development, investment sales, capital markets advisory, and public-sector transactions, often in coordination with our municipal finance group.

AS: Education real estate often touches multiple asset types, funding sources, and institutional priorities. How does your team bring the right expertise together for clients?

TN: What differentiates the Colliers Education Practice Group is that the focus is exclusively on education real estate. It is not treated as one piece of a broader public-sector platform. When a client’s needs require additional services, the team brings in the right Colliers specialists across student housing, capital markets, life sciences, valuation advisory, project management, mortgage services, public finance, and other advisory services.

That structure matters because a campus, dormitory, lab building, or former school site may require multiple lenses to determine the best path forward. Our role is not simply to broker a transaction. It is to act as a “transaction architect,” helping clients understand the asset, structure the opportunity realistically, and move forward with an executable strategy.

AS: What does your client mix look like? Who are you typically working with?

TN: Clients include both education investors and occupiers. On the occupier side, we advise early education centers, private K-12 schools, public charter schools, higher education institutions, and post-secondary programs on decisions tied to growth, occupancy, financing, and asset repositioning.

On the investor side, the pool has deepened significantly over time. Early on, participation was limited; today it includes large institutions, family offices, REITs, individual investors, and 1031 exchange buyers. For example, signed offering memoranda for comparable private school offerings have increased from roughly four to more than 70 over the past decade, reflecting how much broader the investor base has become.

AS: Are you seeing different dynamics across institution types, and where is activity strongest right now?

TN: In K-12, many operators are dealing with enrollment challenges, deferred maintenance, and surplus or underutilized properties in certain markets.

Community colleges have been relatively stable, with recent enrollment growth fueled by affordability, career and technical programs, dual enrollment, and certificate-based pathways.

Four-year universities are seeing a more bifurcated market. Stronger institutions continue to invest, while smaller private colleges and regional public universities are under greater financial and operational strain, including closures, mergers, and asset sales.

From a regional standpoint, activity is strongest in many Sunbelt markets, including Texas, Florida, Georgia, Arizona, and Tennessee, where enrollment growth, in-migration, and student housing demand remain important drivers.

AS: How has the sector evolved over the past few years? What’s driving the changes you’re seeing?

TN: I keep coming back to the term “accelerated evolution.” Over the past six years, both K-12 and higher education have seen more rapid change than at any point in recent history. That is especially significant in a sector where some institutions predate the country itself and were not built for rapid change.

The drivers include declining birth rates, expanding school vouchers, pandemic-era disruption, remote learning, and growing skepticism around the return on investment of a four-year degree. Together, those forces are changing how institutions evaluate space, capital needs, and long-term occupancy strategy.

AS: What are the biggest challenges clients are trying to solve right now?

TN: The most consistent theme is financing and monetizing underutilized assets. In higher education, changes in delivery models have left some institutions with excess labs, classrooms, or entire buildings, forcing them to determine whether to monetize, repurpose, or reposition that space for current demand.

On the K-12 side, particularly for charter schools, the challenge is different. Revenue is often tied to per-pupil funding, which has lagged behind rising construction and development costs. That creates a real constraint around expansion and capital planning.

AS: Why are these decisions so difficult for educational institutions to make?

TN: Most educational institutions were built to educate, not to make complex real estate decisions. When these questions surface, they are often tied to larger strategic or financial issues that have not been fully addressed.

Institutions can also hold on to buildings longer than they should because disposal can feel like failure. By the time they are ready to move forward, deferred maintenance may have eroded value, the buyer pool may have narrowed, and leadership may have a different view of value than the market. That’s where specialized advisory becomes critical.

AS: When education properties no longer fit their original purpose, what types of conversions are you seeing?

TN: It depends heavily on the market. We’ve seen student housing converted into affordable or workforce housing, office space converted into coworking, and, in one case, a school site redeveloped into small-bay industrial space.

Because of that, we’re not just marketing the current use. We’re also evaluating what will happen if that use changes, what alternative uses may be viable, and who could step in.

AS: If you could describe the education real estate sector in one word or phrase right now, what would it be — and why?

TN: Reckoning. Not collapse or crisis, but a reckoning.

Education is being forced to confront realities that were easy to overlook during more stable times. Those waiting for a return to “normal” may be waiting for something that no longer exists.  

But institutions that treat this as a turning point, evaluate their portfolios early, free up capital, and align with their mission will come out stronger.