Josh Parker is Ancora’s founder, chairman and CEO. He leads the board of directors and sits on the Washington, D.C.-based firm’s investment committee. A national leader in the anchor institution and innovation sectors, Parker has unique investment experience spanning adaptive re-use, urban redevelopment, life sciences, venture, innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives, university-leased real estate and mixed-use development. Opinions are the author’s own.
Housing has returned to the center of the national policy agenda with the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act heading for bipartisan approval and aimed at improving lending standards, mortgage availability and regulatory streamlining. Policymakers are signaling that supply matters, but current legislation still does not address the structural constraints preventing housing from being delivered at scale.
While not a panacea, universities could play a larger role in addressing our housing challenges.
The housing crisis is routinely framed as a buyer affordability issue. Buyer affordability as we see it in the market is only a symptom of the fundamental problem. The underlying failure is in creating NEW supply. New housing, of all types, is not being built because it is not financially feasible.
Until we address feasibility, supply will continue to lag no matter how much demand exists or how much we reform mortgage regulation.
The supply failure is structural
According to The State of the Nation’s Housing 2025 by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, the U.S. remains millions of units short of what demographic and economic growth require. At the same time, the National Association of Home Builders reports that construction costs rose dramatically over the past several years, driven by labor shortages, materials volatility and regulatory burdens.
These are not philosophical problems. They are arithmetic.
Capital costs remain elevated. Entitlement and approval timelines introduce delay risk that investors price into their underwriting. Construction economics have shifted permanently higher.
The result is predictable: Projects stall. Capital retreats. Supply contracts.
Housing reforms focused on mortgage access and regulatory efficiency are constructive steps. But they primarily address financing friction at the demand level, not the project-level feasibility constraints that are preventing new supply. Easing mortgage friction does not lower construction basis. Streamlining lending does not reduce the cost of patient equity.
Feasibility, not demand, is the constraint.
Universities: An overlooked structural lever
In many university-driven markets, the rent or sales price required to justify new development exceeds what graduate students, medical residents, junior faculty and staff can reasonably afford. Universities are not the sole solution to the housing crisis. But they represent one of the most underutilized structural levers already embedded in many of the country’s highest-demand markets.
Their importance is not that they are developers, but that they can change the conditions that make development possible. They sit at the center of research corridors, medical districts and innovation economies, which is precisely where housing pressure is strongest.
Universities control land in supply-constrained, high-demand locations across the country, and have access to long-term, patient capital through endowments and balance sheets. They possess unmatched convening power with municipalities and the private sector. And they directly feel the consequences of housing scarcity through their workforce and student populations.
No other institution sits so prominently at this intersection.
Housing constraints have become institutional constraints, and even well-resourced universities face significant hurdles. Private development timelines are extended by zoning and permitting delays, capital stacks increasingly rely on multiple fragmented subsidies, and workforce housing projects often struggle to achieve financial feasibility. While universities operate within the same framework, partnership between universities and the private sector can be an unlock for the challenges that constrain supply in their surrounding communities.
Risk pricing pushes institutional capital away from workforce housing. Required returns exceed what communities can support. Traditional subsidies are often too thin or too slow to close the gap. And entitlement timelines extend beyond what private capital will tolerate.
Universities are uniquely situated not because they are positioned to solve the housing crisis alone, but because they can effectively partner to reset basis, reduce risk and anchor long-term capital in ways others cannot.
What must change
If policymakers genuinely want supply to increase, then in addition to reducing entitlement friction and approval timelines, Congress should lower the cost of readily available, patient equity capital by incentivizing universities to invest in workforce housing.
Specifically, Congress should create a tax credit that universities can apply against the university endowment tax if they invest their endowment in qualified housing. The credit could equal a small percentage of invested capital, e.g. 3%, claimable annually over a 10-year period to encourage long-term investments in our nation’s housing stock.
When university-controlled land is contributed in high-demand markets, it lowers basis at the outset, while experienced private developers bring the discipline and scale necessary to deliver efficiently. Aligned together, these are not theoretical ideas but practical mechanics, and it is through this kind of structural coordination that housing supply actually increases.
Layered together, these tools are complementary to recent housing legislation and meaningfully change the housing dynamics.
Public value, made visible
Over the past year, institutions of higher education have been scrutinized not only for what they teach or research, but for a more fundamental question: What is your public value? Lawmakers, donors, parents, and communities are asking universities to justify their role as civic actors at a time of economic stress, political tension and declining trust in institutions.
Housing delivery offers one of the clearest ways to demonstrate public value without drifting from academic mission.
Housing strengthens regional labor markets, improves recruitment and retention, reinforces the university’s role as anchor civic infrastructure and it generates visible, durable community benefit.
At a time when institutional trust is strained, tangible outcomes matter.
The national housing conversation is finally moving. The Senate and House have signaled that supply constraints deserve attention. But unless we address the structural feasibility gap such as capital costs, construction basis and development friction, new units will not materialize at scale.
Universities are not the entire answer. But they are a central lever hiding in plain sight.
The window is open. Institutions are under pressure to act. Policymakers are engaged. If we align university land, patient capital and federal incentives with the regulatory progress already underway, we can unlock supply in the markets that need it most.
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