"Deferred Maintenance isn't Real"... Rethinking "Deferred Impact"

“I don’t think deferred maintenance is even real. It doesn’t mean anything anymore,” a Chief Facility Officer recently told me. It’s a provocative take—one that stops you in your tracks when you consider the $112 billion deferred maintenance backlog towering over U.S. campuses. How can something so massive feel so meaningless? The answer: we’ve boxed it in as a facilities problem when it’s really a university-wide crisis. It’s time to change the conversation.

Is Deferred Maintenance Even Real? 
Let’s unpack the skepticism. Some call that $112 billion a “fake number”—an unmanageable, cumulative wish list of every leaky roof, busted pipe, and flickering light. No one expects to fix it all, and campuses don’t grind to a halt without it. Students still attend class, faculty still teach, and life goes on, even with cracked sidewalks. So, is it just an inflated figure we should shrug off?  

Not quite. Deferred maintenance is real—but only where it stings. The issue isn’t the total cost; it’s the specific breakdowns that hit the campus mission:  
- Students: A drafty dorm or spotty Wi-Fi doesn’t just annoy—it erodes focus and community. Our data shows poor facility conditions can cut engagement by up to 25%.  
- Faculty: A broken projector or sweltering classroom steals time from teaching and research.  
- Safety: A faulty elevator isn’t a “someday” fix—it’s a liability today.  

The backlog might be abstract, but its ripple effects are concrete. It’s real wherever it disrupts learning, productivity, or well-being.

Scheduled vs. Unscheduled: The Costly Trade-Off
Here’s where it gets tricky. Maintenance splits into two camps:  
- Scheduled: Proactive, planned work—like tuning HVAC systems or inspecting roofs. It’s predictable, cost-effective, and keeps things humming quietly.  
- Unscheduled: Reactive, emergency fixes—like a burst pipe flooding a dorm or a power outage mid-lecture. It’s chaotic, expensive, and often the fallout of deferred scheduled work.  

The trap? Skipping scheduled maintenance doesn’t save money—it just postpones the bill. That ignored HVAC check becomes a full meltdown during finals, canceling classes. A delayed roof inspection turns into a scramble during a storm. Deferring the proactive stuff shifts the burden to costlier, more disruptive crises later.

A University-Wide Ripple Effect
Deferred maintenance isn’t a facilities team’s burden to bear alone—it’s a campus-wide challenge:  
- Students: One university lost a week of lab classes due to a deferred HVAC repair. Another saw a dorm flood mid-semester after ignoring plumbing red flags. These aren’t inconveniences—they’re experience killers.  
- Faculty: A professor juggling a dead heater or broken lab equipment isn’t just distracted—it’s a hit to morale and scholarship.  
- Staff: Facilities crews chase emergencies, while frontline teams field complaints and patch workarounds.  

This isn’t “their problem”—it’s our problem. When a neglected building derails learning or research, the whole institution feels it.

Why the Old Playbook Fails 
The traditional approach—listing every deferred need and tallying the cost—leads to paralysis. When the backlog’s endless and budgets are tight, where do you start? Worse, it often prioritizes inventory over impact. Fixing the oldest boiler feels productive, but if it’s in a low-use building, it’s a miss. Meanwhile, a failing projector in a packed lecture hall gets sidelined because it’s “not urgent enough.”

A Smarter Way Forward 
What if we flipped the script? Instead of asking, “How much do we owe?”, let’s ask: “What fixes will deliver the biggest win for our campus?” Here’s how:  
- Shared Ownership: Facilities can’t fix this solo. Leadership, faculty, and students need to rally around it as a collective priority.  
- Impact First: Focus on what matters—upgrading a research lab to fuel innovation or fixing a dorm to boost retention.  
- Data-Informed: Use usage stats or complaint logs to guide decisions. For example, at Degree Analytics, we use occupancy data to measure building utilization. If a classroom’s occupancy drops significantly, it could signal that deferred maintenance—like a broken HVAC system—is driving students away. This data helps campuses prioritize fixes that directly impact the student experience.  
- Future-Proofing: Invest in solutions—like energy-efficient systems—that cut tomorrow’s maintenance while solving today’s headaches.  

One Fix, Max Impact  
Here’s a challenge: If you could fix one thing on your campus—not the priciest or oldest, but the one that’d unlock the most value—what would it be? A tech-plagued lecture hall? A crumbling residence hall driving students away? How would you measure the win—engagement, productivity, safety?  

This isn’t just about clearing a backlog—it’s about making campus better, one strategic fix at a time. The Chief Facility Officer’s skepticism isn’t wrong—it’s a call to rethink what “real” means and act where it counts.

What’s your take? How do we make deferred maintenance a university priority? What’s your campus’s “one fix”? Drop your thoughts below—I’d love to hear! 👇