July 27, 2001

8 Community Colleges Collaborate to Lower Information-Technology Expenses

By FLORENCE OLSEN

Eight Midwestern community colleges say they have avoided millions of dollars in hardware and software expenses since 1995, when they formed a nonprofit corporation to maintain their student-records, financial-accounting, payroll, and other administrative systems.

The effort among Iowa and Illinois colleges -- called the Alliance of Community Colleges for Electronic Sharing -- is unusual not only because some participants are separated by state lines but because some of them are as far