Maverick Spend in US & UK Universities: What the Data Shows in 2026

E&I Cooperative Services reports that decentralized purchasing across university departments fragments the supplier base and weakens negotiating leverage over time. Off-contract spend compounds this pressure in both the US and the UK by eroding savings that institutions already negotiated. That erosion carries more weight now.

The Office for Students projects that 42.7% of English universities will report a deficit in the 2025-26 academic year. That figure is down from the 45% the regulator projected in November 2025. Actual 2024-25 results came in better than expected, at 35.8%.

No independent source has yet published a direct, segmented comparison of US and UK university maverick spend. This maverick spend university data 2026 snapshot keeps US and UK findings separate rather than merging them. It functions as an off-contract spend higher education UK US resource for procurement and finance leaders evaluating both markets. This piece is part of Jaggaer’s Maverick Spend & Governance cluster.

What Off-Contract Spend Means for US University Budgets

E&I Cooperative Services reports that off-contract and maverick spend fragment a university’s supplier base. They also weaken its negotiating leverage over time. Cooperative purchasing agreements deliver real, negotiated discounts to member institutions. Those discounts only apply when departments buy against the agreements. E&I’s own June 2026 analysis found that many departments do not. The reason is decentralized purchasing across academic departments, labs, and individual p-card holders.

The result is a slow, cumulative loss of negotiated leverage, rather than one identifiable expense. It rarely appears as a single flagged transaction. Instead, it shows up months later, as a gap between a cooperative contract’s negotiated rate and what departments actually paid.

Why Decentralized Campuses Are Especially Exposed

University purchasing is decentralized across academic departments, research labs, and individual p-card holders by design. Each buyer places orders independently, often without checking whether a negotiated contract already covers the purchase. This structure gives researchers speed and autonomy for time-sensitive needs.

The tradeoff, according to E&I Cooperative Services, is that a negotiated agreement only protects savings when every buyer actually uses it. One lab supply order or one conference booking rarely looks like a problem on its own. The pattern across hundreds of departments is what erodes the budget.

EDUCAUSE Review reaches the same conclusion from the technology-procurement side. Decentralized procurement introduces risk unless every area conforms to institutional guidelines and policies. Individual faculty and staff can, and do, still bypass institutional processes entirely, often using personal or institution-provisioned credit cards.

The UK faces a parallel pressure, though the numbers behind it moved twice in the past year..

The UK Financial-Pressure Context in 2025-26

That figure replaces the regulator’s own November 2025 estimate of 45%. Actual 2024-25 results came in at 35.8% in deficit, better than forecast. Grant Thornton UK’s Higher Education Sector Development Report 2025 shows total sector borrowing fell slightly, from 29.9% to 28.4% of income between 2022-23 and 2023-24. Institutions carry approximately £15 billion in external debt. International student fees made up 45.6% of total UK higher education income in 2023/24. They are projected to reach 48.9% by 2027/28, according to the same Grant Thornton report.

This financial pressure is not a maverick-spend-specific statistic, but it raises the cost of any unmanaged spend leakage, tracked or not.

Recent Developments

The Office for Students revised its own deficit projection twice within a year. It moved up to 45% in November 2025, then down to 42.7% in its May 2026 report. Autumn 2025 recruitment outperformed the sector’s conservative forecasts.

E&I Cooperative Services published new guidance on tail spend and maverick spend in June 2026. It confirms the structural cause of budget leakage is the same in both countries. Purchasing is spread across too many departments, with too few checks. Even so, no organization has yet published a direct, segmented comparison of US and UK university maverick spend.

What Closes the Gap

Guided buying routes each purchase toward approved suppliers before an order is placed, rather than flagging it after the fact. A “No PO, No Pay” policy removes the option to buy off contract and get reimbursed anyway. Spend analytics then surface exceptions in real time instead of during a year-end audit. E&I Cooperative Services’ own research recommends this same combination of controls for higher education specifically.

Institutions already working with E&I can adopt JAGGAER’s higher-education spend management solutions through E&I’s pre-negotiated cooperative contract, without running a separate RFP.

Key Takeaways

• The Office for Students now projects a 42.7% deficit rate for English universities in 2025-26, down from 45% projected in November 2025.
• E&I Cooperative Services identifies decentralized departmental purchasing as the primary driver of maverick spend in US higher education, not any single expense.
• Grant Thornton UK reports approximately £15 billion in sector-wide external debt, with international student fees now covering 45.6% of total income.
• No independent source has published a direct, segmented US-to-UK comparison of maverick or off-contract spend.

Figures in this piece reflect each source’s most recently published update as of August 2026. The Office for Students’ deficit projection in particular has been revised twice within the past year.

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Next Steps

Guided buying and real-time spend visibility turn a negotiated contract into savings a university actually keeps.