Each year at the annual EDUCAUSE conference, hosted in Nashville this year, the Laserfiche team gets the chance to connect with the higher education technology professionals driving campus innovation. It’s an enriching experience and an opportunity to discuss how content management can help higher ed teams drive student success. It’s also a forum to explore upcoming challenges higher education will face in the year ahead, and discuss potential solutions to those upcoming challenges.
Based on our conversations with technology leaders at EDUCAUSE, we’ve identified three upcoming challenges and how to face them head on.
Meeting the Looming Enrollment Cliff with Modern Services
With demographic shifts already driving persistent enrollment declines, higher education institutions must pivot from simply attracting applicants to actively fostering an environment that makes students want to stay at their schools which makes administrative efficiency a key value driver.
Students today are digital natives; they expect their university to provide technology and services as accessible and intuitive as the leading consumer apps they use every day.
Institutions can no longer rely on paper-based or clunky legacy digital processes. Successfully navigating enrollment requires a full embrace of modern, technology-driven processes, including:
- Easy-to-use digital student forms
- Seamless self-service portals
- Quick resolution of administrative tasks
When core processes like registration, financial aid applications or petitioning are streamlined and effortless, the institution itself stands out in the eyes of applicants.
Using AI For Back-Office Efficiency
The impact of AI when it comes to modernization continues to grow and is quickly becoming an advantage to higher education institutions. By implementing AI tools for intelligent data capture, automated records routing and document processing, institutions can dramatically reduce the time and cost for back-office tasks like invoice processing or records management. This newfound efficiency and savings can then be strategically reallocated to high-touch student services.
AI can add value across campus departments, including:
- Admissions: Speed up reviews with automatic data capture for all admissions documents.
- Financial Aid: Accelerate awards timing by automatically extracting tax and FAFSA data.
- Credit: Read transcripts in any format to process course equivalencies faster.
Responding to Financial Retrenchment with Technology Audits
The most pressing theme at this year’s conference was the widespread acknowledgment that financial retrenchment is a permanent reality for many institutions. IT leaders are evaluating their tech stacks and identifying where multiple departments may have purchased tools with overlapping capabilities.
IT teams are looking to optimize digital transformation and adopt tools that have the flexibility to adapt across multiple departments and streamline admissions, student services and back-office operations. These platforms should also seamlessly integrate with other solutions, such as a school’s SIS system, so administrators don’t have to duplicate efforts and data can flow freely between departments and processes.
Strategic Efficiency Drives Success
The key message from EDUCAUSE is clear: success in the coming year depends on strategic efficiency. By addressing financial retrenchment through vendor consolidation, improving recruitment via exceptional digital student experiences and leveraging AI to free up staff resources, institutions can thrive.
Interested in learning more about higher education technology, showcased at EDUCAUSE? Learn more now.
