From the 1990s to the present, U.S. public universities have invested heavily in campus development as part of the fierce competition with peer institutions over students and funding. At the same time, these institutions are confronted with enormous demographic, economic, pedagogical, and technological challenges. This dissertation studies this problem through three parts: a) a semi-structured literature review investigating the impacts of the emerging trends in higher education on the prevailing 21st century’s campus expansion paradigm, b) a cross-case-study analysis of institutional planning documents measuring the level of awareness of the emerging challenges impacting campus physical planning, and c) a cross-case-study analysis of interviews with senior administrators and planners evaluating the level of institutional response to the emerging challenges in question. The review synthesis of the scholarly sources confirms the looming risks and their implications for all aspects of institutional and campus planning; the cross-case-study documentary analysis confirms an overall strong awareness of the emerging risks; and the evaluation of interviewee’s insights and answers to the research questions reveals a high-level of concern and a moderate institutional response to these risks. With a wide range of recommendations and strategies unearthed in all three parts, this study indicates that a new planning paradigm is taking shape that institutions are gradually adopting in response to the growing risks. Most institutions, however, are still tied to several strategies of the old model of business and planning for Higher Education (Higher-Ed). The findings of this research emphasize the magnitude of the growing risks and their implications for campus physical planning, the urgency for place-based institutions to rapidly re-examine their prevailing capital planning priorities, and the need to explore innovative response strategies as part of the new and improved planning paradigm.