Predictions for Higher Ed Technology in 2021

So first of all, the size of the institution matters the type matters, and the geography is also important. We have barge public four year institutions. We have research institutions. We also have private not-for-profit , uh , liberal art institutions as well as , um, public two year and for-profit institution . So I think when we , um, we and others, and when we think about higher education, it's, it's important to understand that the not, not every institution is the same.

And we , we want to be considerate of the fact that the challenges that, that institutions face can be very different, but in almost every case, the conversations that we have , um, we find that in the last six months in particular , um, people are overwhelmed. Um , they're feeling that the last eight to nine months have been so stressful , um, starting with the way that they have had to adjust their , uh , home lives. Um, most everybody has been personally impacted , um, by the pandemic.

Um, most people know someone that has been sick or lost their life to , um, to the illness. And so they're operating in a very careful environment. They've had to change the way that they work and it's impacted their staff. And so it's created an environment of high stress and , and no matter what else is going on, we want to acknowledge that at the root of all of our work, we're, we have people that have to, you know, be considered in everything that we do.

So the environment that we're , um, working in, in the U S higher education is extremely stressful right now, everywhere.

And then I think the , the third thing that I would say is that this'll be the year that we see some new ways of thinking about institutions combining operations. And I look forward to talking with you about what I mean by that.

And so what , what we're finding is that more and more leaders want to have tools that they can plug in numbers and run dozens of scenarios in a very short period of time, so that as assumptions change as information, and then as real time data comes in that financial modeling and planning can be done very quickly and adjustments can be made in real time because we don't have the luxury anymore of making , uh , you know, thinking about a plan and then implementing a plan over some period of

months. Uh , the , this pandemic has created a situation for all of us that requires us to be able to react in real time to urgent situations and leaders have to have real information, real cost data, and information that has to be available at the touch of a button. And to do that, you need more sophisticated tools than Excel.

And what do you think is going to be different about 2021?

And so the institutions that the we've been talking with about this understand, and, and realize that the way to mitigate these risks over the long-term are to move operations to the cloud where third parties are responsible for more of the basic system operations, where you have more , um, backup, you know, disaster recovery, more , um, more people available to help run core system operations.

And I think that there's, there's been an acknowledgement of that for some time, but there hasn't been the level of urgency that, that has now been acknowledged as a result of what we've been through in the last year. So regardless of whether you, the institutions are actually running , um, you know , many cases, in fact, the majority of us institutions in terms of the core systems of record are still running legacy applications.

So for those institutions really talking about for the most part lifting and shifting legacy , uh , on-prem applications to run in a, basically a hosted or hosted managed services environment. Um, we're not, I'm not saying that I think that those institutions are all of a sudden gonna replace those applications with SAS based solutions, because I don't think they will in the near term.

I think they're, they're just looking for ways to mitigate the risk of having to have all the staff and equipment and the , the staff to run the equipment on on-prem that they've had in the past because of the, the risks that they realize were real when, when everyone had to go home.

available on a consistent basis. So, yes, those are the ones that we see institutions thinking about moving first .

among very thoughtful leaders about how institutions can combine operations to stay successful, to stay relevant and to continue to serve students. So that's one way that we, that we seeing institutions think about , um, remaining viable. So for example , um, two or three or four institutions that may be independently might not have the best long-term outlook individually, but maybe by combining operations, they may have, you know , similar , um, that may attract similar students.

They may have , um, programs that might be complimentary or maybe some overlap. So for example, they could , uh , reduce some staffing in some areas, they could combine their , um , administrative operations, for example, and reduce the overhead of running the institution if they combined their operations. Um, we're seeing those kinds of conversations taking place.

And we're also seeing on the, on the public side , um, institutions thinking about how they can combine to share selecting common platforms and for the first time, really seriously looking at how they can take advantage of common environments in sharing , um , human resource knowledge across the public institutions.

I mean, for, for some years now, we've seen where, where it's been mandated institutions combining and combining operations, but now we're understanding and seeing even where it's not mandated that many public institutions are talking about how they can be better stewards of public funds and sharing , uh, operational efficiencies, which is , is a very positive thing.

And then another area is , is another, there are two other twists on this that are, that are also , um, are, are being explored by institutions. That that is consortium's right, where , um, consortium are coming together to, to share , uh, some of some subset of their operations. So for example, the green mountain consortium is, is an example of where we've seen , uh , institutions come together.

Three institutions came together to combine their ERP operations on a , they selected a common platform and they are moving forward , um, that working together , um, they have a shared operations center and they're using a common platform to run their systems of record, and then a different example, but also , uh, another example of , um, way we see institutions working together to share resources and save money.

This is something that roll out in 2021 is the , uh , group of schools that are involved in the Hess consortium, where they're going to , um , 31 or two schools are going to select a platform and think about how they can work together on a common platform to save money. So lots of , um, lots of opportunities and lots of new thinking about working together to , to , um, to reduce overhead, especially in information technology where so much money is that

And w we, we don't know yet , um, as an, as an industry, how, how long-term student outcomes are going to be impacted as a result of, of the pandemic. But we do know that , um, from a K-12 perspective, many K through 12 have been shut down for last spring, and then this fall, and again, going into two this spring, many students have had to learn from home and go to zoom school, as they say.

And so standardized testing has been impacted, you know, bots of test optional , um , institutions , uh , many more than before.

And so students are rethinking , um , the experience that they, that they want if they've been online for their junior and senior year, or maybe all of their senior year now , will that impact the way that they want to experience higher education, or if their entire freshman year, for example , um, was online, will they go back, will they pay the full tuition for a second year of online education, or are we going to start to see some attrition to more online programs?

And so I think that , um, we'll , we'll start to see the numbers will start to show more movement in , um, in students to more online programs where they can save money , um, by doing more work online and the institutions that have online options for students to take advantage of the degree program, where they intended to be in school will benefit the most and institutions that don't have options for students to , um, to continue with programs at , uh , you know, maybe be some sort of reduced

tuition rate, have the w are going to face the most competition and potentially be at the biggest loss for students. And that I would say this is with the exception of perhaps the most elite private not-for-profits and the most elite research, one institutions who will probably never struggle for, for that student enrollment. I mean , um, but that's not the majority of our higher education institutions.

I mean, the majority of our institutions are , are constantly looking for how they're going to recruit their next best class. So I think that's, you know, be understanding where your competition is coming from and how you're going to , um, recruit those, those students are gonna stay with you for the four years through graduation is going to be even more important in the next 12 to 18 months.

They were going to have the typical college experience. They now may really be rethinking that and thinking about, well, you know, maybe alternatives are just as good of an option for me. And, you know, I , as these conversations are playing out in my own household, I can really see how this is being multiplied over many households over the U S what kind of impact that may ultimately be having on enrollments.

And, you know, that trickles down to many more pressures, as you said, on the institution, no , the need to adopt more automation, perhaps they can't have as much staff. There are many variables here that are going into, what do we think the landscape is going to continue to look like?

You know, the institutions are typically putting, you know, making them working from a five-year plan, but those plans need to be evaluated and reconfirmed more than annual now because the rate of change and the impact of the pandemic and the ongoing changes that are going to have to be made and, and re-evaluated, and a year is too long to think about , um, how you, how you're going to need to adopt in your own environment.

It's just no longer reasonable or possible to, to think about , um, you know, an, an annual review. And so I would , um , urge every institution to think about , uh , looking at a planning cycle. That's at least semi-annual and , and , and putting a process in place to , to make changes as frequently as possible to, to adapt to this environment that is turbulent at best