Colleges have been circumspect about whether that spending will bounce back as local economies return to some normalcy following Covid restrictions; all but one school, the University of Colorado at Boulder, contacted for this story declined or did not respond to requests for comment. Higher ed experts interviewed for this story say travel budgets have typically covered student recruiting trips, faculty speaking tours and brand-building by administrators in far-off locations in the United States and abroad. Many of those in-person efforts have since been supplanted by technologies.
