Towson University considers outsourcing UStore operations

By Sarah Sternhagen, Editor-in-Chief

Towson University is looking at potentially outsourcing its UStore to re-establish it as profitable. Towson’s financial division is also drafting an internal plan should the university ultimately decide to keep the store in-house.

Towson issued a Request for Proposals, known as an RFP, in early January outlining potential vendor requirements. Final applications were due Feb. 14. At the same time, university officials are outlining ways to make the UStore self-sustaining without outsourcing.

“We’re going into this with very much an open mind, which means there’s equal chances of retaining an internal with a new business plan versus outsourcing,” Ben Lowenthal, Towson’s chief financial officer, said.

The RFP outlines the criteria for vendor selection. Vendors must include detailed plans around textbook offerings, past experience with colleges, a staffing plan to guarantee employment to current store employees and more.

As an auxiliary service, the UStore does not use tuition or student fees to operate. The UStore, originally the ‘Book Shop’ when it started in 1936, did well financially up until the early 2000s. But over the last 15 years it had to dip into its accrued ‘savings,’ as Lowenthal describes it, to keep the store soluble for when costs outdid revenue.

In 2024, that ‘savings’ dipped into the negative and prompted finances to draft an internal action plan to make the UStore profitable again, and consider outsourcing.

The Towerlight obtained the UStore’s revenue and expenditure lists from 2020 to 2024 through a Maryland Public Information Acts Request. In all four years the UStore’s costs outdid its revenue.

The UStore earns almost half of its revenue through digital course materials which increase as more faculty adopt the materials for their classes. Inventory purchases make up the bulk of the UStore’s expenditures.