Planning issues for colleges seeking to maintain quality in institutional programs in the face of retrenchment are analyzed, based on a literature review. An extensive bibliography on the following topics is provided: quality (ratings, rankings, reform, institutional goals, and educational outcomes); retrenchment (enrollment decline, faculty, finances, and flexibility); evaluation (assessment of performance); and strategic planning and other solutions. Specific concerns that are analyzed in the paper and covered in the bibliography include: reputational ratings of institutional quality, criticisms of educational quality, proposals for reform, attempts to catalog definitions of institutional goals and performance of these goals through measures of educational outcomes, the decline in high school graduates and the 18-24 age group, declines in states revenues associated with economic recession, reduction of federal program funding combined with inflation exceeding revenue, a planning approach implemented at the University of Minnesota as an example of the successful use of retrenchment to achieve positive goals and the decisionmaking criteria involved, the importance of evaluation to help justify priorities, and strategic planning versus the more traditional forms of long-range planning. (SW)