Higher education institutions are increasingly adopting practices more commonly seen in the corporate sector.

That is the central findings in the “Retirement Plans for Institutions of Higher Education” study from Transamerica Retirement Solutions, which also found that the 403(b) plan is “now often the primary retirement funding tool — if not the only retirement funding tool — available to staff and faculty.”

The study also said that “the retirement plan market of Higher Education institutions, once dominated by a small group of service providers that enjoyed a favored status, is moving in the direction of exclusive arrangements with a single service provider selected for its capabilities and merits.”

The retirement outlook in higher education isn’t great: Just a third of higher education institutions estimate that “half or more of their employees are on track to achieve a successful retirement.”

In other words, that’s just one out of every two employees in only one out of every three institutions of higher learning.