Sourcing Solutions Creatively and Cost Effectively at California Community Colleges

Institutional Profile

The California Community Colleges system is composed of 73 districts. With 2.1 million students at 116 colleges, it is the largest system of higher education in the United States. More than 70% of California community college students come from diverse ethnic backgrounds. In the 2023–24 academic year, the system offered 369,639 course sections across credit, noncredit, and basic-skills courses.

The Foundation for California Community Colleges (FoundationCCC) is the 501(c)(3) nonprofit partner to the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office, and its mission is to benefit, support, and enhance California Community Colleges. FoundationCCC developed and operates CollegeBuys, a strategic purchasing program designed to harness collective buying power to deliver significant cost savings and specialized support to both private and public colleges.

The Coast Community College District (Coast CCD) is a multi-college district that includes Coastline College, Golden West College, and Orange Coast College. The three colleges offer programs in transfer, general education, occupational and technical education, community services, and student support services. Coast CCD enrolls more than 60,000 students each year in more than 300 degree and certificate programs.

The Challenge/Opportunity

Procurement, purchasing, and the cost of products and services are increasingly top-of-mind challenges for EDUCAUSE community leaders—whether they are institutional members, associations, or corporate partners. In a recent EDUCAUSE Connect thread, IT leaders from various institutions highlighted some of their successes and struggles with procurement. Tightening budgets and challenges with enrollment make it more important than ever to be able to create good partnerships with third parties, finding providers who understand the needs of higher education as well as the unique challenges each institution faces.^Footnote1 At a recent EDUCAUSE Virtual Summit with EDUCAUSE Mission and Strategic Partners, the challenges of technology costs and procurement processes were a main topic of conversation. As illustrated in figure 1, the level of effort and potential impact required to address these challenges can vary widely across institutions.

The California Community Colleges face these procurement and cost challenges on an epic scale, considering their mission to deliver high-quality, equitable education to millions of enrolled students. With tight budgets and limited staffing, districts must prioritize funding for students and faculty, making efficiency and cost-effectiveness in procurement essential. Jennifer Keiper, Senior Director of Procurement Services at FoundationCCC, works to find cost-effective and compliant solutions through CollegeBuys. This program secures strategic sourcing agreements with third parties on behalf of the California Community Colleges, helping districts streamline procurement and contracting processes while achieving cost savings through favorable terms and pricing. Through FoundationCCC's relationships with technology solution partners such as CDW, the colleges can receive assessments, tailored consultations, procurement support, and implementation services to maximize their IT investments. Through broad cooperative utilization clauses, CollegeBuys permits its contracts to be used by other educational and public institutions through piggybacking. By maximizing the number of institutions employing CollegeBuys contracts, districts can leverage the aggregate buying power for better pricing and service terms for both California Community Colleges and other partner institutions. The work of Keiper and others at FoundationCCC has generated over a billion dollars in savings to the California Community Colleges since the inception of CollegeBuys and served over 400 educational and public institutions nationwide.

Working at the district level, Rupa Saran wears multiple hats as the Vice Chancellor and Chief Information Technology Officer at Coast CCD, in addition to serving as the board president for the Chief Information System Officers Association (CISOA), comprising IT leaders from across the 116 California Community Colleges. Her work is focused on identifying the specific technology needs of students, faculty, and staff and deploying solutions. "We see evolving technology [needs] every single day," says Saran. "Student expectations are for new and relevant technology to be available during their time here, so the technologists are therefore under pressure to provide those technologies." The question and challenge for leaders like Saran then becomes how to work with Keiper and FoundationCCC, as well as peers at other California Community Colleges, to best manage the financial and personnel costs associated with finding, purchasing, and deploying technology solutions in such an ever-shifting environment.

Process

District-Level Coordination

The high-level approach of FoundationCCC's management of procuring technology solutions starts with a plan to provide as many wins as possible for the various stakeholders involved in the process—the California Community Colleges, corporate partners, and the state of California. The California Community Colleges get to stretch their dollars further to acquire resources and technologies that benefit their students, faculty, and staff, while also reducing the time and expenses of contract work because it is negotiated at the district level. Corporate partners get an expedited route to reach a larger customer base at the system level than they could through individual contracts, while also showcasing their work as thought leaders and meeting the needs of institutions at lower prices. As Keiper puts it, "Our work at the FoundationCCC to provide technology solutions for our community colleges enables us to be an engine for California's growth and economic mobility by improving the skills and knowledge of the over two million students enrolled."

However, the practical aspects of the full procurement process for such a large system require a great deal of work and collaboration from folks like Keiper at FoundationCCC, the many leaders like Saran in the college districts across the state, and corporate partners. FoundationCCC has worked for years to develop a shared governance structure for the technology procurement process that starts with either a Request for Proposal (RFP) or Request for Information (RFI) process, which will include subject-matter expertise from CTOs or other IT leaders. These processes ensure the CTOs are bringing the knowledge of their users and their needs, as well as the added value that comes with a new technology solution.

Of course managing procurement for a system so large can easily result in an overcommitment of resources, so prioritization is key. FoundationCCC staff must consider each request's priority based on the broader system strategy and goals. One of the first priorities is for solutions that address an accessibility or compliance need to ensure all students are being served equitably and that resulting agreements comply with California law, as well as with Section 508 of the Rehabilitiation Act and the ADA. FoundationCCC next prioritizes projects through data-driven decisions. If a project or solution will benefit a broad cross-section of students or can improve processes across most or all of the colleges in the system, then it will be assigned a higher priority to develop those agreements. IT leaders like Saran can suggest potential vendors and go through demonstrations of technology solutions, and then committee discussions take place to score the technologies along predefined criteria and ensure they will serve end users. These committees then meet regularly to weigh the initial and ongoing costs of new projects against their benefits, factoring in new information and potential shifts in priorities. It can be an imperfect and complicated system, but centralization helps provide the greatest benefit for the largest number of students, faculty, and staff.

Starting Small

Technology implementations often run over budget, over time, and below performance expectations. Saran and other colleagues have sought to avoid these project pitfalls by running smaller pilot projects with new technologies. Pilot programs help them measure outcomes in a small subsection of users, without requiring the effort and cost required to bring the technology to the whole college system. For example, Saran is testing a new AI course-assistance solution in her district that aims to help reduce the load on faculty by allowing students to get responses to some of their questions by interacting with an AI chatbot. She is bringing this technology to a few select, engaged faculty who were willing to test the system in a course they've recently taught. When the semester is completed, they'll examine the data of student performance in the classroom, as well as gather user experience feedback from the students and faculty about how helpful the AI chatbot solution is. Saran can then take the results of this pilot project to the committees to review and discuss the potential of deploying it to the whole system.

Meanwhile, staff at FoundationCCC are constantly working closely with corporate partners to take recommendations and input from the districts to negotiate prices, plan deployments, and improve understanding of needs and costs for both groups. For example, when acquiring new hardware devices from CDW, FoundationCCC's business and legal teams lay out the contract with language and terms based on feedback from community college district leaders including Saran. FoundationCCC staff use leader feedback to negotiate prices below market rates and establish expectations for support from the corporate partner, including, for example, developing a website that each college can go to for ordering devices, as well as any necessary professional development or training that would be helpful for users and IT staff.

For their part, vendors can provide informative webinars and help manage communication about the technology solutions with the many colleges and districts. The relationship between FoundationCCC and corporate partners is built on months or years of interaction that leads to a better understanding between both groups throughout the continuing evolution of the technology market. As Keiper puts it, "Our collaboration with CDW helps both of us to understand evolving solutions, and they are nimble enough to modify our agreements if necessary. We try to stay on top of changing needs by going to colleges and having discussions with leaders. We also have quarterly meetings with CDW where we highlight what we are hearing—what are emerging challenges and needs our institutions are facing."

Through collaboration among California Community Colleges, FoundationCCC, and corporate partners, students, faculty, and staff across the system have gained access to more affordable, equitable, and effective technology solutions, benefiting all involved.

Outcomes and Lessons Learned

Taking the time to build relationships early on will pay dividends later. Collaboration is an essential part of working within a large system of higher education such as the California Community Colleges. With so many stakeholders involved in each project, success depends on proactive communication, transparency, and realistic timelines. Being intentional and inclusive in the planning process ensures broader buy-in and more sustainable outcomes. FoundationCCC and colleges work closely and meet regularly with CDW and other partners. This relationship helps each group see through the lenses of the others, and that improved understanding supports relationships, streamlines negotiations, and helps make each step of a complicated process easier to navigate.

Start small, learn small, and then plan a scaled approach for larger deployment. As mentioned above, pilot programs can provide very valuable information and lessons for a potential technology solution without requiring a full commitment up front. Pilot programs can ensure that technology initiatives align with institutional goals, especially when they are run through a chief technology officer or other IT leader who can bridge the gap between the users and executive decision makers. As Saran puts it, "As the CISOA Board President, I often reflect on how, just five years ago, CTOs were primarily focused on managing technology within institutions, staying in their technical lanes. However, with the rapid evolution of technology, it’s clear that technology must now be integral to every institutional goal. Today, CTOs need to be more strategically involved, using their expertise to help shape high-level decisions and contribute to the broader vision at the executive level."

People, projects, needs, and more change, so being flexible and adaptable is key. Flexibility, humility, and active listening go a long way in adapting to the evolving issues that will come with any large-scale project. For others looking to embark on similar efforts to build collaborative solutions for procurement, stay open to feedback from users, leadership, and peers from other institutions. Being willing to adapt to feedback and iterate on your approach over time can help prevent over-commitment of resources and ensure that priorities stay relevant. Saran highlights how important this has been in her role: "So many things are changing with technology and higher education, and that affects us. We can't be so rigid and say 'This is the one and only path forward' because things keep changing. Whatever our future needs are going to be, we must look at the bigger picture, and we must be flexible enough to adapt to the evolving world."

Note

1. Jenay Robert and Mark McCormack, "EDUCAUSE QuickPoll Results: Solution Provider Partnerships," EDUCAUSE Review, December 9, 2024. Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.↩

Sean Burns is a Researcher at EDUCAUSE.

Rupa Saran is Vice Chancellor and Chief Information Technology Officer at the Coast Community College District.

Jennifer Keiper is Senior Director of Procurement Services at the Foundation for California Community Colleges.