For companies wanting to do business with the 200 or so university, school and hospital officials attending the Sustainable Operations Summit last month in New Mexico, there was an added benefit. For $18,500, a vendor was guaranteed 15 one-on-one sales meetings with officials at the conference, held here in June. A company that sent two representatives paid $25,500, with each promised 15 private sessions. The university officials and others who were attending were told flatly that they were required to go to the meetings. But on the heels of the student loan scandal, some higher education officials — and even some consultants seeking access to them — called the conference’s format deeply troubling. How, they asked, could university executives tolerate having access to them bought and sold so overtly?
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