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The 4 Flaws of Traditional Higher Ed ERP/SIS Consulting

Higher Education and the technology that drives it is changing at a lightning-fast pace. Naturally, institutions are turning to consultants to help them implement new technology and navigate the installation safely. Consulting is hugely beneficial to Higher Ed, helping them to expand and transform their capabilities. But not all Higher Ed consultants are the same. To avoid costly setbacks, inadequate tech, and diminished ROI, leaders must be aware of the 4 major flaws in traditional Higher Ed consulting.

1. Certified Consultants – What That Really Means?

Software vendors and system integrators tout the number of certified consultants they can provide. But what does it really mean to be “certified”?

A certification simply verifies that outside providers have passed a test validating their knowledge of the basic architecture of a system, a general understanding of how to configure the software out-of-box. By nature, certification tests are designed to cover the broadest functionality—not the nuances required by a specific industry such as higher education. A certification can only confirm that a consultant knows the very basic functions of the software. It does not guarantee they know how to configure the system to meet the unique needs of your campus.

This is not to say that certifications are without value, just be sure to keep that value in context. A base-level of knowledge is crucial, but so is the added expertise that certifications do not necessarily provide.

If you have ever found yourself in a conversation with a vendor when they could not provide any assurance that your specific needs could be met with the software they provide, then you understand the difference between someone who has passed a test and someone who is an industry expert.

Additionally, when major software updates occur, some consultants are not required to re-take their certification test. They become “grandfathered in” to the program, even if the software has completely evolved since its conception. This creates incompetence within the consultant space.

It explains why many consultants are competent technologists who understand bits and bytes but do not have the knowledge or expertise to advise schools on contemporary software design and architecture.

That gap causes several schools to struggle through implementation, resulting in delays, cost overruns, and poorly configured software that does not meet the institution’s needs—effects that can impact the school for years.

So, while software and system integrators may boast the number of certified resources they can provide, Higher Ed must recognize that one week of technical training on a platform does not necessarily mean that person is capable of advising you on the strategic architecture of a campus system that will work seamlessly and specifically for you.

2. The Consultant – Who Do They Really Represent?

Let us not confuse having a consultant assigned to your implementation with having a consultant who is dedicated to your outcomes. Remember, consultants are paid by the software vendor or system integrator and are therefore loyal and beholden to the software they make a living on.

In some cases, consultants stay silent when they recognize gaps in the platform’s capabilities when it comes to meeting your needs. They may know that their new product is not ready or is not customizable enough to meet the needs of your campus. However, to admit that would mean a canceled contract.

Certified consultants are not likely (or even allowed) to recommend a product from another vendor—even when they know that a different software would be better for you. Consultants can only recommend a solution from the assigned vendor or the consulting firm they work for. So emerges a very dangerous conflict of interest.

That is why schools—even with the support of their “certified consultants” have struggled through the design and implementation of their new ERP/ SIS applications.

The truth is, the ERP/SIS was probably never the right fit for that school.

3. The Go-Live Utilization Model

It is important to point out that the traditional consulting model is built on the 40-hour workweek; consultants are hired by a firm as full-time employees for a fixed wage. Those consultants are then dispersed to clients for a fee higher than what they pay the consultant. There is nothing wrong with that until you recognize that a consulting firm’s top priority is to keep their utilization of staff, or outside billing, as close to 100% as possible.

This drives firms to load implementation projects with 40-hour work weeks billed to you, the client, in consecutive weeks leading up to a go-live. In this model, the consulting firm’s main goal becomes to take a school live, not to install the new system in a way that provides the best outcomes post-launch.

The result of this outdated business model makes consulting engagements needlessly expensive and has a devastating impact on ROI for the school.

It is especially damaging for small schools with already strained budgets, schools that often must opt-out of implementing new and increasingly essential technology.

That digital divide driven by income disparity has always existed in Higher Ed, but the pandemic has shed new light on the inequality. Larger institutions can afford to pay consultants for endless rounds of 40-hour workweeks. But the mid-market community colleges and HBCU institutions, the schools that need the most help and are in the crosshairs of the pandemic, are left out to dry.

This digital inequality demands a transformation in Higher Ed consulting.

4. Resource Allocation

One of the most costly inefficiencies Higher Ed has been experiencing for more than two decades is allocating expensive (and often inexperienced) consulting resources to tasks that do not really require consulting, at least not according to the textbook definition.

To understand this claim, let us identify what is expected of a consultant. In their article, Consultancy.uk defines a consultant as this:

“A consultant is a person who provides professional or expert advice in a particular field of science or business to either an organization or individual, and the consultant provides expertise that a client lacks or support that a client is unable to fulfill.”

The latter part of this definition is what we need to focus on.

For the past 20 years, the traditional consulting model took on roles and completed activities on behalf of the client at an extremely high hourly rate. Many of these roles could have been fulfilled by the client themselves, or other human resources, at a significantly lower cost. In other words, consulting firms (who need to keep their people billing 40 hours a week) have guided clients to use them for activities that do not require a consultant.

Here is a short list of low-cost, non-consulting activities that have been billed at high rates by traditional consulting for the last 20 years:

Configuration
Testing
Training
Production Support

Just because a school may not have had the bandwidth or internal expertise to do these tasks, does not mean they are activities that fit the expert consulting definition (or price point). At best, they fit the definition of gig work or staff augmentation.

In the long run, it is much more cost-effective to use internal resources who know your school to do these tasks with better efficiency. And an experienced project manager who understands your culture can certainly add value to the process.

In fact, spending money and resources on a more educated internal team is sometimes more valuable than hiring an outside consultant. Many software firms offer certification in their software to clients or prospective clients. Having someone from your organization get certified in the software gives your school the best of both worlds. You end up with someone who knows the architecture of the software as well as how your organization works. It saves money and speeds up the implementation by reducing rework and costly configuration mistakes that so often plague schools for decades.

The short-term investment needed to free up your internal resource to go through certification is well worth it. The same can be said for testing, training, and production support.

You Control Your Consulting

The purpose of this article is not to villainize software vendors and their certified consultants, but it is a warning that their agenda does not necessarily align with yours. So, before you start any technology implementation, clearly define how you are going to use consultants and what their qualifications need to be for the various roles you envision. Having this framework puts you in control of the consulting relationships. Identify the right resources (both internal and external) so the right things can be done by the right people for the right cost.

Beyond Academics can assist you in this pre-implementation strategy so that you can move through the buying, design, and go-live process with confidence that you have stewarded the process properly. For now, start with this:

First, make sure any consultant you bring on comes to the table with a deep understanding of how higher education works and is committed to working for you, not the software vendor. Ensure they can provide you strategic, outcomes-based guidance—not just technical setup and wrench-turning.

Next, recognize that, while there are many vendors and system implementors who want to bring true long-term value, others see you as a revenue opportunity. Sometimes, their true motivation is to sell licenses and 40-hour workweeks for their consultants. They may call themselves “partners,” but they take no stake in your long-term success. Their objective is to get you live and move on to the next client. You are the one who gets left behind to deal with the results. You need to learn how to identify and separate the two groups.

Finally, own your implementation. Do not be tempted by the false economy of hiring full-time consultants supported by part-time institutional resources. It may feel cozy to be surrounded by lots of people billing $200+ per hour, but that does not mean guaranteed success.

It is much more cost-effective to provide full-time resources from within the school and pay for the staffing backfill while using implementation consultants to solve specific technical problems under your oversight.

Also, consider looking for software-agnostic consulting firms. They are more likely to find the ideal fit for your school, rather than working to convince you that their vendor’s product can be customized for any school (because it cannot).

Always remember that the decisions you make will impact your institution long after your consultants are gone. You are building the future of your school—do not leave it to inadequate software provided by unaligned consultants.

Mental Health Monday: Increased Anxiety In Students

What to look for, when to seek help, and what schools can do to support their students’ mental health.

Anxiety is a common and sometimes helpful tool that can help students stay motivated, prepared, and alert. For example, when students are preparing to take tests, a certain level of anxiety can be helpful in order to get tasks accomplished. However, when that feeling of anxiety becomes debilitating and stops them from accomplishing their tasks, generalized anxiety could be to blame. It is important to note that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in increased uncertainty, loneliness, stress, and worsening of generalized anxiety for the student population.

Per the CDC, in 2019 (prior to the pandemic) 9.5%, 3.4%, and 2.7% of adults have experienced mild, moderate, or severe symptoms of anxiety in the past 2 weeks, respectively. Most adults who experienced mild, moderate, or severe symptoms were between the ages of 18-29. Women were more likely to experience mild, moderate, or severe symptoms of anxiety than men.

The Problem:

Once anxiety becomes overwhelming and unmanageable it is referred to as Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). GAD can be described as a feeling of excessive worry that is associated with restlessness, irritability, muscle tension, or difficulty concentrating.

Student Barriers:

We already know that students are facing worsening anxiety due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, students often delay seeking care, citing lack of access to care, the stigma associated with mental health conditions, and the lack of understanding of the condition. Students often self-medicate with increased alcohol consumption, drug use, or self-isolation which can only worsen GAD.

For Students:

Seek help when you need it. Some signs that you may benefit from support are when:

You are experiencing feelings of hopelessness.
Your anxiety is causing you to feel physically ill.
Your anxiety is impacting your grades.
You are sleeping more than usual and feel a lack of energy to get your day started.
You have a decreased appetite.

For Schools:

Train your staff to recognize when students may be displaying signs of worsening anxiety.
Improve access to care for students.
Increase focus on student wellbeing.

5 Reasons Campuses Are Unwilling to Change

The world around us is moving at an incredible pace, and industries are modernizing right in front of our eyes. This shift is due to the urgency to stay relevant and, more importantly, sustainable in a competitive, post-pandemic marketplace.

Within these modern industries are agents of change who hold various roles from the highest level of leadership to the operational level of the workforce. They have innovated to stay relevant and competitive. Their goal is to ensure they create products and services to meet the expected, fast-paced demands of their consumer. And their nimbleness has allowed them to succeed.

So why has Higher Ed struggled to modernize?

1. Comfortability

Humans are creatures of habit, and we are comfortable with what we know and do. The same goes for Higher Ed, which has relied on the same methodology and technology for decades. Even though these things slow institutions down and inhibit their innovation, Higher Ed is comfortable and unwilling to change.

The good news about the global pandemic is that it has finally forced Higher Ed to evolve the outdated practices that should have been changed years ago.

2. Title Ownership

People are entitled by their titles. Their assigned roles are heavy with accountability. This responsibility creates fear of failure but also over-empowers the role. The focus is on personal advancement, not on the advancement of the institution.

3. Boxed-In

Many leaders are insulated by their campus, laser-focused on internal operations. With their head down, it is difficult to imagine that their problems are the same problems that other institutions are facing. They believe that their problems are unique, so they cannot innovate in the same way as other schools.

Campuses are unique, but not as unique as their leaders may think. Enrollment sustainability, campus affinity, transfer rates, and technology are all top-of-mind within Higher Ed. All campuses need to evolve, and that evolution will be easier and more valuable if campuses look to each other for how to innovate.

On a large scale, campuses need to transform together. Then, once they’ve accomplished that, they can tailor their approach to fit their smaller, more unique needs. It’s time for Higher Ed to lift their head up and look to one another for ways to change.

4. Tenure Workforce

Faculty and staff (more often than we would like to admit) view tenure as a security blanket, and, once they are under it, they cease to improve upon their role. This goes back to the comfortability of Higher Ed. But comfort inhibits innovation.

Higher Ed is a competitive landscape, and faculty and staff must constantly strive to make improvements. If the tenure doesn’t go away, it at least has to change. It is among the many elements of Higher Ed that do.

5. Retirement Horizon

Similar to the tenured workforce, leaders, faculty, and staff who are within retirement age are not motivated to make improvements. Their sights are set on their personal advancement into retirement, not the advancement of the institution.

A common theme arises among tenure, retirement, and title ownership: the individual is placed above the organization.

What needs to change? Whether it’s a change in operations or a change in culture, Higher Ed needs to align their institutions’ value with the value to its faculty, staff, and students. There is no motivation for innovation within an organization that cannot inspire loyalty. To create loyalty, value must be placed on the campus experience, the services the university offers, and a shared mission.

So how do campuses address each of these struggles?

Try starting here: Consider every campus role with term limits. Put people on the clock and give them a set time frame to make an impact. This will create motivation that leads to innovation.

It will allow individual mobility to high-impact roles alongside the growing and evolving institution. It will also allow for others to get exposure to new jobs and experiences, creating a workforce with a diverse set of skills. All the while, campuses will benefit from innovative, driven faculty and staff who are striving to make a positive impact.

Innovative campuses are campuses that are constantly in motion, especially when it comes to the ever-changing technology that enables their innovation. Faculty and staff need to be nimble and comfortable in a fluid campus. And they have to start now.

As the new, post-pandemic era begins, will your institution be innovative? Or will it plant its feet in its old practices and get left behind?

Student Mental Health and COVID-19

Due to the long-lasting pandemic that has led to stay-at-home orders, lockdowns, and social distancing, COVID-19 has had a disastrous impact on the mental health of college students. During this time, students have been feeling isolated which has led to an increase in their stress, anxiety, and depression. Many schools have shifted to online learning, and, for some students, this less interactive form of learning has increased that feeling of isolation and its adverse effects.

During increased levels of stress, students may have thoughts of hurting themselves and thoughts of suicide. Due to the lack of access to care, students may put off seeking help when amid a mental health crisis. That is why it is important for school officials, family members, and peers to look for warning signs to make sure that those who need support receive it. Some common warning signs to be aware of are:

Isolation from friends
Expression of feelings of tiredness or sleepiness more often than normal
Drug and/or alcohol use that is more than normal
Increased mood swings

It’s also important that students recognize the warning signs in themselves. Students should be aware of these common signs of chronic stress, anxiety, and depression:

Feeling like a burden
Being isolated
Increased anxiety
Feeling trapped or in unbearable pain
Increased substance use
Looking for a way to access lethal means

Increased anger or rage
Extreme mood swings
Expressing hopelessness
Disturbed sleep patterns
Thoughts of self-harm
Making plans for suicide

If you or someone you know is struggling to cope and need immediate assistance you should call 911, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1800273TALK), or call/text the Disaster Distress Helpline (1-800-985-5990).

Questions for Higher Ed Leaders:

Are schools ready to take care of their student population knowing the increased mental health crisis facing them?
How will schools lead the next generation of students to better health and a better life?

The college campus will never be the same again, and old solutions will not solve new problems. Higher education has a responsibility to its students to provide them the mental health resources that they need.

BA’s Top 10 Predictions for Higher Ed in 2021

Higher education faced some unprecedented challenges in 2020 and we were forced to adapt. But though 2020 is over, Higher Ed still has a lot of work to do. We must continue to adapt and transform—as we should be doing every year—to create a better future for students of today and beyond.

Here are our Higher Ed predictions for 2021, including the challenges still to overcome:

Online and hybrid education will be here to stay post-pandemic.

Schools will continue to use online and hybrid education to expand their geographic market and reduce costs. The quality of remote learning will continue to increase as faculty build up their skills and schools enhance their technical capabilities. The prevalence of online courses will make it easier for students to transfer between institutions. More students will continue to live off campus which will greatly reduce housing and fee revenue.

COVID mitigation protocols will continue to impact campuses through 2022.

Schools plan for the possibility that the pandemic won’t significantly ease and many COVID protocols become permanent. The appearance of more contagious variants and the slow roll-out of the vaccine will mean academic years 2021 and possibly 2022 will look a lot like Fall and Winter of 2020. The Federal DOE will issue comprehensive COVID guidelines and institutions will have to change their current protocols to meet the new nationwide standard.

Students will expand their choice of institutions beyond traditional boundaries and transfer credit will increase at 4-year institutions.

Student transfers will continue to increase. Remote education will make it easier for students to assemble their diplomas by taking relevant classes from a series of institutions. At the same time, responding to the drop in number of college age students, schools will increase recruiting Sophomores from other schools to become Junior transfers.

Many institutions will reduce their workforces (faculty/staff) and many programs will be sunset due to budget constraints.

Tenured and tenure-track faculty positions will continue to dwindle. Schools will soon have faculties made up entirely of adjuncts and short-term contractors. State systems will consolidate their smaller, financially weaker schools. All schools will start evaluating their programs and close low enrollment programs that are losing money.

ERP / SIS transformation projects will be scrutinized.

The technology budgets of state and private schools will be slashed over the next two years. As a result, schools won’t be able to afford 9 figure ERP/SIS transformation projects anymore. Instead, they will focus their resources on smaller technology initiatives with clear strategic goals targeted on specific processes. There will also be an increase in high-impact transformation initiatives that are not technology based.

Consulting firms dependent on ERP and SIS will downsize.

Without a steady pipeline of large ERP or SIS initiatives, consulting firms that specialize in technology implementations will have to downsize. However, firms that specialize in developing strategy, business process transformation, and the student experience will thrive.

Parents will be more critical of the ROI of sending their child to college.

Parents (and students) will question why they are paying pre-pandemic tuition and fee rates for their children to take online classes. As the pressure to reduce tuition and eliminate fees increase, schools will have to find ways to redefine the value students receive from their tuition investment.

Schools will struggle to maintain their campus affinity with remote learning.

Online learning makes transferring from one school to another significantly easier. Students will see an individual school they’ve attended as simply one stop of many on their way to a degree. This weaker affinity will make it harder for a school to develop its students into institutionally loyal, lifelong learners, supportive alumni, and long-term donors.

Enrollment of socioeconomically disadvantaged students will continue to drop, especially in community colleges.

Enrollment for both 4-year and community colleges dropped in 2020. Economic uncertainty, housing and food insecurity, lack of internet access, and having to teach their children at home are leading many people to put off enrollment. As long as these roadblocks remain, the downward trend in enrollment will continue.

Private schools will have to increase discounts.

In the Fall of 2019, the average tuition discount rate for private colleges was 53%. Institutional aid paid, on average, 60% of the published tuition price, leaving colleges in a tight financial bind. In an effort to keep their enrollments stable, colleges will continue to increase discount rates and institutional aid—further weakening their financial position and causing some schools to close.

Do you agree with these predictions? What other predictions for 2021 do you have?

Technology Enables. Ideas Transform.

Technology won’t solve our problems. Technology is a tool, like a hammer or a saw. A power saw will only make you more efficient at building something—it won’t make you a better designer or a better carpenter.

But that is not what most consulting companies will tell you. Article after article, pitch after pitch, consulting firms will tell you that this or that technology is going to “transform your school” and make your institution “better faster and more competitive.” But, until you know your goals and the outcomes you are striving for, you won’t be able to select the technology you actually need. It would be like going to your tool chest and grabbing a saw before knowing if you need to cut a board or change a faucet.

The view that technology alone is transformational is deeply rooted in the 1990s and 2000s. In those eras, technology had a significant impact on higher education—automating paper processes while making transactions faster and easier to track. Massive amounts of paper disappeared as processes moved online. But, in the end, the technology didn’t transform higher education; it only transformed how day-to-day administrative processes were executed.

Yet, consultants continue to promise technology will “transform your business.” And the technology that firms tell you will transform your business happens to be what is sold by the vendors they are aligned with. Most consultants are experts on how a software package operates within a school, not on how a school operates and delivers value.

Technology enables. Ideas transform.

The world is changing fast. You need to step back and ask: What do I do, now? What do I do to develop and deliver on my institution’s vision and mission? What do I do to deliver value to students for their tuition dollars? What do I do to ensure my students are able to use our institution to become lifelong learners? How do I best prepare my students for a rapidly changing job market that has opportunities for graduating seniors that did not exist four years ago when they were first-year students?

None of these “Now what?” questions are answered simply by implementing an updated software.

To serve our industry, consultants must move away from the techno-centric answer to every question. They must learn to answer the “Now what?” questions schools are asking as they face this tidal wave of change. We need to change our focus from what is simply enabling to what is truly transformational.

Only after these questions are answered can the “How do we do it?” question be answered. The answer to that question doesn’t have to be new software. It can be a change in the business process. Or it can be a change in who the school targets to recruit, what programs it offers, or how it supports its community.

So, now what?

First, institutions need to focus on developing strategies and actions to meet the challenges they face and worry about technology later. To succeed, schools must seek out those consultants and firms that truly understand the business of higher education and how it operates, rather than those firms whose primary expertise is a specific software or technical solution.

To succeed, schools must seek out those consultants and firms that truly understand the business of higher education and how it operates, rather than those firms whose primary expertise is a specific software or technical solution.

Consultants need to start the hard work of understanding how higher education operates and what its challenges actually are. They must change their focus from technology-only solutions to business outcomes. They should only propose a technical solution that supports specific outcomes, and only after those outcomes are well understood.

Consulting firms need to drive their business knowledge lower in the staffing pyramid. The practice of sending in a team of new, industry-inexperienced consultants to do the day-to-day work of the project, with the real experts making infrequent visits should end. Experts should be readily available to guide your institution in creating a strategy as well as sharing their knowledge with the rest of their team.

Clients need to choose only those consulting firms that are willing to build long partnerships with them that go beyond technical implementation. Time and money are too tight to pick a consultant who simply installs your software and walks away.

Institutions need to find partners who will help them answer the “Now what?” questions today, tomorrow, and long into the future. They need partners who understand what they are trying to do, ones that won’t simply hand them a power saw to fix a faucet.

Okay Higher Ed, Now What?

Colleges and universities have opened for on-campus instruction and despite the protocols, guidelines, honor codes, and plexiglass, college-related COVID cases have exploded. On September 3, the NY Times published a map showing there were 51,000 COVID cases across 1,020 institutions—and this number is increasing.

It is clear what happens when schools try and operate along the “normal” business model.

Now what?

The first step is understanding there will be no return to the way things were.

Terri E. Givens, CEO of the Center of Higher Education Leadership and a former Provost, said:

“If there is any leader in the country who thinks it is going to go back to where it was a year ago, they are lying to themselves. But what this will look like is going to be hugely dependent on resources. Right now, everything is in emergency mode.”

You may be in emergency mode but to survive you will have to focus on a future, a future that will include COVID.

As Matt Alex of Beyond Academics says:

“Where the status quo ends, opportunities begin.”

What are those opportunities?

Understand who you are as an institution. How would you define your institution if you didn’t include the on-campus experience? How do you quickly and clearly define the value you provide to your students? What would your recruiting collateral look like if you didn’t include pictures of the leafy quad, the attractive college town, and the comfortable dorms? How would you define what makes you different from all the other schools that are moving their courses online at the same time you are?

Joel Mathew, co-founder of Beyond Academics and Leader of Digital Enrollment Strategy, says the spike he has seen in college advertising is significant. But most of the ads he’s surveyed are focused on a degree a potential student can earn, not on the value to the student. He said:

“Many Higher Ed ads you see are all generally the same. They are more than likely a list of benefits or attributes that scream ‘look at us’ when they should be more student-centric and focus on the ‘why’ of the end consumer.”

Everyone is offering online degrees. If you can define the value you deliver to your students, you will set yourself apart from the noise of the pack.

Focus on the student.

Now is a good time to look at your processes and technology and ask “Who are these processes serving: the administrator or the student?” For the last 20 plus years, as schools become more technology-enabled, processes have been designed either with software in mind or making administrative processes easier. Now, is the time to redesign those processes to be student-centric.

Increase learning effectiveness.

COVID presents a chance to remake how we deliver education. In the rush this spring to move classes online, lectures were recorded, and power points were converted to PDF and put online. But now schools must plan for remote teaching for the long haul and the course catalog must be redesigned to be effective in a remote/high-flex format. This presents an opportunity to move to more effective teaching approaches like a flipped classroom. With better course delivery, better learning experience, and better learning outcomes, students will see the value your school delivers for their tuition dollars.

No matter what—understand your cost and revenue models.

Many institutions can’t define the costs and margins of their basic product—the course offering. What other industry can say that? State budgets are being drastically cut. State allocations to education were just getting close to pre-2008 levels. But the cuts that are coming will erase all that. Private schools are meeting with resistance to their tuition rates.

As revenue shrinks, it is time to deeply understand and manage your costs. What are the elements of your cost of instruction? Is your school running multiple versions of the same software? Are there new revenue sources? Can you use your online learning capabilities to expand your geographic reach? Once you understand the value that you deliver that is separate from the on-campus experience are their prospects that you can target that you’ve missed in the past?

COVID has changed how higher education must operate, and it will never go back to the way it was at the start of 2020. We’ve already seen what happens when schools try the old ways in this new world. Things break. Things fall apart. To survive, institutions will have to operate in a new way in the new world.

Think Entrepreneurially Or Risk Extinction (Or Irrelevance)

I was recently asked why (of all places) I chose to get involved in a higher education think tank and consulting firm.

After all, I didn’t spend most of my life working on a college campus building deep industry knowledge and subject matter expertise. The five years I did spend on campus as a student in the early ’90s were certainly nothing to write home about.

So why higher education? And why now?

Here’s what I found myself answering in response to the question.

First, I believe in the vision of our founder, Matt Alex, has. He has spent over 25 years in the Higher Ed space, and he has seen it from every angle—as an insider, a gifted consultant, and a soon-to-be customer. When Matt says the system is broken and unsustainable, I believe him. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to observe the train wreck trajectory traditional higher education is on.

Second, I like fixing broken things. It’s what my career as a serial entrepreneur has been all about. I spent the better part of a decade researching entrepreneurial behavior, and it’s how the entrepreneurial mind works. You see a problem and you look to solve it.

Some problems are easy to solve. Others, not so much. A small handful are so big and so messy, it’s not worth pursuing for the faint of heart. (#USpolitics) Higher education comes pretty darn close to the latter. But someone has to do it. Someone has to fix Higher Ed.

As I’ve invested the time to really look at Higher Ed through a business lens (hint, hint), I’ve realized that even though the problem appears gargantuan, the solution is really quite simple.

Here’s the problem:

Pricing: The financial model is breaking because the product is overpriced, and customers are finally pushing back. This is what is freaking higher education out. They never expected to be challenged on the value they deliver. Every new year was supposed to be a license to raise prices. After all, that’s what it has been like for 100 years.
People: The most valuable asset in higher education, the professor, is grossly underpaid for what the university generates in revenue off that professor. Yet, the professor is drunk on “tenure kool-aid.” It’s only a matter of time when (really) smart professors realize they can earn more for their intellectual property in a global educational marketplace than in a salaried job on a boat that is starting to take on a shocking amount of water.
Positioning: It was surprising to me to discover how little financial oversight there is in higher education. We’ve all heard about the cat being away and what the mice do in its absence. When things run loose for as long as they have in higher education, mega-disruption always follows, and there are lots of casualties. Here’s what’s just around the corner: if the student (buyer) will soon be able to access the professor’s content (product) differently (direct digital access), how does the middleman (the institution) justify its massive markup? (Think Amazon, Casper, and every other manufacturer-to-consumer play.)
(Value) Proposition: If higher education tells me that I have to pay $40,000-$70,000 per year for my kid to get a good job 4-8 years later, and now brands like Google say that same kid (subject to being the kind of human being they would want in their company) could take an 8-week certification course and have a job with them, there’s a problem brewing. Google is just the tip of the iceberg on this.
Pivot-Inability: Most industries see writing on the wall when it appears and start to adapt and change. My friend and partner Matt Alex tells me that higher education plans to do some kicking, screaming, and even some Ostrich-like behavior with their head in the sand.

So, what’s the solution?

It’s back to simplicity, where great solutions always lie.

Humility: Higher Ed has had a great run for 100+ years. But anything that old is just that: old! Old isn’t bad. It’s actually good. But old and rigid is a problem. So, the easy solution is to recognize what you’re not as gifted at—business mindset, entrepreneurial thinking, product innovation, messaging, customer acquisition, and change management—and ask for help.
Transparency: The reality is, there is going to be collateral damage. Disruption of the magnitude heading toward Higher Ed is going to kill a lot of budgets and take a lot of jobs. Be open about what you are talking about in C-suite conversations, so that your D-suite, managers, and staff, aren’t blindsided later.
Innovation: I’m told that higher education does not like this word because of what it insinuates regarding change. (It is ironic to point out that Higher Ed teaches about innovation but doesn’t want to be innovative.) I would like to make the case that Higher Ed go all in to embrace this word, discover what it really means, understand how to activate the behaviors on campus that drive it, and put a framework in place to foster it. There are plenty of smart, passionate, and committed people who work on campus who have ideas that need to be heard, tested, and pushed to market. What is missing is the framework.
Embrace Failure: It’s another taboo word, I know. However, without allowing this to happen in small ways in the short term, we guarantee it will happen (at an existential level) within 5 years for a lot of schools. Embracing failure and what it can teach us is a key trait of organizations that thrive through change. This means a professor should feel free to experiment with new ways to deliver a class knowing that even if it is a total disaster in the Fall semester, some changes and improvements (with student feedback) could result in a game-changing solution for the Winter. The same is true for the registrar’s office, the dean’s office, and student services.
Re-Imagine: You’ve heard the saying “if you don’t know where you’re going, all roads will lead you there.” The handling of return to campus in the Fall of 2020 is a testament to that. There was no vision beyond “We have to get tuition and dorm dollars in the door.” So plans got put in place to make that happen—only to see them backfire. What if institutions took the time to imagine what it will look like to be a Successful Post-Pandemic Institution and work backward from there? That’s what entrepreneurs do. You begin with the end in mind. That’s what I’d challenge Higher Ed to do sooner rather than later.

The next piece I’ll write will describe what I (an obvious outsider) believes a Successful Post-Pandemic Institution needs to embrace in thought and action. It may ruffle a few feathers, as I am sure this piece will do. But for the few who are open to some fresh ideas, I want to present a roadmap to re-imagine a bright future.

In closing, there’s actually a third reason I am partnering with Matt Alex to help higher education—even though I could be doing a lot of other things that are less taxing and more financially rewarding.

I believe in the people of Higher Ed.

I have had a chance to meet and spend time with many of them on webinars, TownHalls, Zoom meetings, and conference calls. I believe that a majority of people who work in higher education care deeply about what they do. They want things to get better.

Truth be told, they don’t know exactly what to do next to protect their jobs, their institution, and their constituents, but the good ones are (finally) looking for answers.

Others, unfortunately, will think and act like the board of directors of Blockbuster Video (and many other examples I can cite of people who were convinced they were invincible) when the Netflix’s of their world showed up on the scene. That movie (pardon the pun) does not end well.

Summary

It’s been a good 100+ year run, but it’s high time for fresh, new thinking in how Higher Ed serves its customer.
Those who want to keep repaving old roads like my partner, Matt Alex, talks about, will pay a dear price for it. Sure, the university/college may still exist as a name and location, but a lot of good people won’t have jobs there anymore.
Innovation, when done right, can be fun, empowering, and, most importantly, more beneficial for all involved. If we’re really in this for the kids, we need to act like it.
You’re not alone, Higher Ed. Other segments of the economy have been through existential change and come out just fine. There’s plenty of help and case studies available, but you have to look outside the higher education bubble.
Don’t be like an ostrich at a time like this.

Life is full of choices, keep it entrepreneurial!

Joe Abraham
Author of Entrepreneurial DNA
Operating Partner, Beyond Academics

Higher Ed: What Are You Paying For?

As we navigate through the pandemic, and as more schools make the shift to online learning, the questions about the cost of Higher Ed are rising to the top.

Schools are faced with…

financial repercussions with campus closures.
shifts to a new learning model.
requirements of online services.
reductions of auxiliary revenue streams,
the potential of enrollment drops.

Families are requesting money back or a lower tuition because the campus aspect is being taken away. Everything that they invested in was centered around the student’s experience. ‘All’ that digital learning is giving to them now is knowledge.

My quick disclaimer: I am not saying that the cost of higher ed is justified, but it is not as simple as “I need my tuition back because the model of education has shifted online.”

Three Real Issues to Address:

What does tuition go toward?
What are parents and students really paying for?
Is the cost justified?

While they are separate questions, the points in this article will shed light on all three.

Parents Are Willing to Pay

“But the ultimate driver of cost is the sheer number of people vying for a college education.” – Richard Vedder, distinguished professor of economics emeritus at Ohio University [1]

Is higher ed expensive? Yes.

However, we live in a supply and demand world where you have the freedom to attend or not. No one is requiring you to pay the tuition for a product that you do not feel is worth it. You have a choice to attend more cost-effective institutions.

An article by Higher Ed Insider indicates:

“The prospective students and families that colleges and universities recruit typically have no idea the actual cost of an education until long after they’ve chosen where to apply. That often leads them to rule out institutions with costs they could have afforded, but prices they could not.” [2]

The reality is that you are paying for the brand, experience, and social economics stature to get through the gate check for the career world. Here is what folks need to understand before you ask for a tuition refund.

Infrastructure

Running a campus is not cheap. Campuses are mini cities with infrastructure and resources to provide its services.

In a story in the Atlantic, Amanda Ripley articulates:

“It turns out that the vast majority of American college spending goes to routine educational operations — like paying staff and faculty”. [3]

With that context, part of tuition is like a community’s tax bill to cover the cost of the city. The cost will not necessarily disappear when it is closed. They will not refund taxes for closed community centers or parks due to the pandemic.

Like citizens, students are paying for the college, not the specific services. If they feel that a city is not providing value for their tax money, many move. Students can do the same if they do not find the school’s worth and value.

Campus Support Activities

Campuses still have to support a variety of academic activities—pre-admission, academic lifestyle, student/learning management/engagement systems, resources—that require an organizational structure in place to manage it. Although they have been inefficient for years, they are still in place and used in an online experience.

Do not forget about the robust support staff that manages the students’ journey through various offices—admissions, registrations, bursars, advising, financial aid, and other college departments.

According to Business Insider:

“College is expensive for many reasons, including a surge in demand, an increase in financial aid, a lack of state funding, a need for more faculty members and money to pay them, and ballooning student services.” [2]

Not only do you have to recognize that the infrastructure to maintain a campus is complex and expensive, but it also requires dedicated leadership and staff to manage and maintain every aspect beyond the knowledge layer that students experience.

Overvaluing the What

The education content that you actually experience in a classroom is not drastically different from one campus to another. The reality is that quality faculty are at many campuses no matter the tier or ranking. The knowledge within standard courses can be disseminated in a related loop annually.

The WHAT factors such as classes, courses, faculty, climbing walls, football team and modern dorms are at many schools. Parents and students have choices to pay for the WHAT or the WHY. If you are unhappy with a high tuition, you can change colleges as I mentioned earlier. However, you also need to find unique reasons WHY you are choosing that college.

Academic Credentialing and Potential Opportunities

The cost of your tuition is dictated by the credentials gained from that institution. You are paying for the label that is placed on a pedestal for a transcript, resume, and social media platform, along with the use of their name to open up doors for your future. Exponential career paths are opened after you graduate from one of the big brand schools. Many take advantage of applying to an expensive college in hopes that they can compete and gain the opportunities that it presents. That degree’s value is not necessarily lessened because of how the instruction is consumed.

So what are you paying for? Are you paying for the seal? Paying for the bragging rights?

Each are drivers that dictate the price. As value gets aligned and parents rethink how they spend, campuses will also redesign what they invest in. Until then, you have a choice to enroll or not, as there are many alternatives to gain knowledge. Once you can determine what you want to pay for, the decision is easy.

Sources

The End of Sneakernet

Many schools designed their technology systems based on how their processes were executed in a paper world. When they first went to mainframe, institutions simply moved their paper processes to the computer with the idea of “I’ll fix them later” and they forgot about them. As a result, over the years key processes were simply lifted and shifted from one system to the next—from mainframe to client-server, to online to the cloud. If the new computer system could support them, many “as is” processes were left, “as is.” If the student was on campus and could walk from the Registrar’s office to the Financial Aid office, to the Bursars, to make payments and submit paperwork, there was no real need to update this “sneakernet.”

But no longer.

Since March, higher education has been laser-focused on getting classes online and developing protocols for safe, in-person instruction. But now colleges and universities are rapidly toggling back to remote learning and face a whole semester and possibly a whole academic year of remote instruction and remote administrative processes. Now colleges and universities simply can’t afford to leave these burdensome administrative roadblocks in place.

Even before the pandemic, in order to survive, institutions needed to raise student retention and graduation rates, while reducing enrollment melt. With schools moving to remote learning and students questioning the value of on-line instruction compared to the cost of tuition, increasing student satisfaction and retention is even more important.

To successfully support their students, institutions need to review their administrative processes with the same care they configured safe classrooms, installed plexiglass shields, and set up soap stations.

The first step is to generate an inventory of key student-facing processes. Each process in the inventory should be reviewed through the lens of understanding its desired outcome. Once the outcome is understood, institutions need to ask two questions. First, “Does this process have a face to face component, and does that component have to be done on campus?”

If the answer is yes, institutions must ask “Is this face to face interaction even needed?” If the answer is no, the process should be redesigned to eliminate the face to face interaction with a focus on the student’s journey to the desired outcome—not what is easier for the administrator or out of date rules. If an in-person interaction is required, the process should still be reviewed through the lens of how a student experiences it to make it as efficient and student-centric as possible.

Overall revising these processes can increase efficiency, lower resource needs, and increase student satisfaction. All of these are key to surviving and staying strong in these rapidly changing times.

And students will be happy to see the end of the “sneakernet.”

About John Thompson-Haas

John Thompson Haas has been dedicated to the Higher Ed Space for the past 30 years. Playing various roles from Faculty, System Implementer, Strategist, and now leading consulting at Beyond Academics, he brings a perspective to our client discussion as they look to shift in the new normal and create exponential transformation.

John Thompson-Haas can be reached on LinkedIn or via email: jth@beyondacademics.com