Collegeville, Minn. — Here’s a tidbit of advice, gathered from people I met at Saint John’s University, in central Minnesota: When you’re making decisions about the built environment on your campus, think like a monk.

The Benedictine Order has been around for about 1,500 years, and that gives you some idea about how building-maintenance decisions are made here. More than one person told me that there is no (or very little) deferred maintenance on the campus. When the monastic community here makes a decision about materials, they think about the long term.

Last week, I walked around the campus with Gregory Friesen, an architect who has been hired to renovate the university’s stunning (and remarkably well-maintained) buildings by the well-known modernist Marcel Breuer.

I told Mr. Friesen what someone had told me — that Breuer relished the idea of working at Saint John’s because he knew that the monks would take care of his buildings forever.

“I’d believe it,” Mr. Friesen said. “They have a different sense of time. They don’t make decisions based on the tenure of a president or the tenure of a board chair. They make decisions because they are the right ones, and you don’t often see that on campuses.”

He pointed to some buildings on the campus that had recently been re-roofed with copper, an expensive but very durable material. “They take the long view,” he said.

This attention to durable materials and long-term maintenance might be as unusual as Mr. Friesen suggests. A recent report from APPA, the organization for facilities managers, says that colleges and universities do not plan sufficiently for ongoing operating costs and maintenance in buildings. APPA’s report, called “Buildings … The Gifts That Keep On Taking,” is based on a three-year study that included interviews and meetings with top college administrators, including presidents, chancellors, and facilities managers.

The research found that design and construction costs are often considered one-time capital costs, separate from maintenance costs, and that those maintenance costs are not always clearly defined when a building goes up. Also, administrators often don’t have a clear sense of how a building project might fit into a college’s mission and institutional needs.

This lack of planning seems to have led to a huge backlog of deferred maintenance. APPA’s report cites past studies that estimate the backlog at $36-billion nationwide. Colleges spend about $20-billion on facilities operations every year (including maintenance, energy, and utilities), and $14-billion on new construction. Yet the amount being spent on maintenance has been going down in recent decades, the report says.

The report profiles “Warbucks Hall,” a real building with a different name at an unidentified research university in the Midwest. The lifetime cost of designing, building, and demolishing the structure will come to $80-million. Meanwhile, the cost of maintenance, operations, retrofits, and upgrades to the building in its 75-year life will run about $115-million.

Many colleges have buildings far older than 75 years. A campus environment can be filled with permanent fixtures. So think like a monk — you might be making decisions for the ages. —Scott Carlson