A Corporate Perspective on the EDUCAUSE 2025 Top 10: Gartner

Which one or two of the EDUCAUSE 2025 Top 10 issues are going to be most impactful to the higher education CIO?

When I looked at the eleven issues—because there was a tie for #10—I realized that if you step back and look at the picture they're painting, three major themes emerge. The first one is about efficiency. Higher education must become more efficient, and the need for efficiency runs through several of these issues. The second theme is effectiveness. We must do a better job at the institution, particularly with learning outcomes and student satisfaction. The third theme is security and trust. People must feel their data is safe, and they should be able to trust that their data is being used ethically. Achieving success for all three of these major themes is particularly difficult during this time of turbulence. At Gartner, we use the term VUCA to describe this period of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity we see our clients experiencing.

In this time of VUCA, the CIO is really the go-to leader on campus who can help the institution craft responses or solutions to these challenges—because many of these issues are challenges. So, what is the CIO's responsibility? It's really to architect a technical environment that views data as the crown jewels. This is the data era. It needs to be scrubbed, integrated, protected, and prepared to improve efficiency and effectiveness and reduce the friction that many experience in the campus environment. I'm not surprised that the issue that ended up as number one is The Data-Empowered Institution. Without high-quality data, institutions won't be able to make progress toward addressing the rest of the Top 10 issues. That's where I think all institutions need to start.

I'm sure when many people think of the term "artificial intelligence" (AI), they immediately think of generative AI (GenAI) because that's what's been on the news so much over the last year. But here at Gartner, we view AI as a larger category of technologies that includes many aspects. Some of the AI toolboxes that can help higher education institutions with efficiency are AI-based analytics and robotic process automation (RPA). Being able to automate tasks and processes is an opportunity to improve efficiency, especially with administrative tasks, but there are also opportunities on the academic side, some of which would really improve the student experience. A lot of efficiencies could be gained with things like chatbots. Chatbots may not be as sexy as some of the other GenAI use cases, but they are very important in terms of helping institutions become more efficient. As generative AI advances, things like chatbots will get much better. They don't have to be based on tree structures, making maintaining them even faster. There are a lot of efficiencies to be gained within that larger family of technologies.

What challenges do you think are in store for higher education in 2025?

Some would say the list is long, but a particularly concerning issue is the likelihood of more closures and mergers in the United States. While I'm sure most of us would want to put that in the "challenge" category, we need to remember that not all mergers and acquisitions are bad. We see them in the corporate world all the time. They're typically designed to identify synergies between multiple organizations and products, resulting in a single stronger entity.

We in higher education need to adjust our mindset about this and start to look at some of these challenges as the opportunities they are. While I think mergers and closures are probably on people's minds, there are other things that we're likely to see more of. I suspect that we'll see more shared services, particularly in state systems, as well as more program cuts as higher education leaders begin to think more like business leaders in terms of what's sustainable and what isn't and as they consider the many resources that are required to support programs and the—dare I use the term—ROI associated with those programs; for example, the dwindling number of students interested in a particular program.

Aside from the opportunities associated with GenAI, we're surely going to see some failures with GenAI—and maybe some fairly big ones from early adopters—but I would remind everybody that we desperately need those early adopters. Over the years, we in higher education have been known for being brave enough to be early adopters of technology. Stubbing one's toe can happen to an early adopter, but that is a natural part of the innovation process. Our Gartner Hype Cycles illustrate this, as we follow technologies that come out of the "trough of disillusionment," as we call it, and eventually climb to the plateau of productivity. That's what I think we'll see in the coming year with GenAI. Today, we are seeing many GenAI initiatives that aren't grounded in specific objectives that are being measured. In other words, they are lacking purpose.

Another challenge we've seen coming for the last twenty years is shifting demographics. People are having fewer children, and there are differences in terms of where U.S. higher education institutions are located and where the population is growing. Tuition costs at small private institutions have grown so much that many of these institutions are using tuition discounting to an unhealthy or unsustainable degree, and they may reach a point where it's not possible to move forward. On the flip side of this coin, mergers could be seen as an opportunity—a positive outcome to the concentration of state systems or as a way for multiple private institutions to capitalize on a single physical campus.

What opportunities do you think are in store for higher education in 2025?

The old phrase, "Don't waste a crisis"—which isn't new to anyone in the higher education community—comes to mind. I use the word crisis lightly. I'm not sure higher education is in a crisis, but we're at a moment where there's momentum for change. It started with the coronavirus pandemic. Higher education was forced to change, shifting toward hybrid learning and increased use of technology to adapt to the crisis.

The current "crisis," along with the opportunities presented by the introduction of GenAI and other technologies, has made us rethink some of the long-held practices in higher education—something I refer to as "believed uniqueness," or the snowflake syndrome. All colleges and universities are unique. This one's tricky because it doesn't mean you should not differentiate your institution. Differentiation is a key element of a corporate strategy that will be necessary for institutions to thrive, but it needs to happen quite deliberately in strategic areas, not just because "we've always done it this way at our unique institution." It's costing institutions tremendous amounts of money. If you look at the Top 10 issues and think about efficiency and effectiveness, there's probably a ton of money that could be scooped into the dustpan if someone could move the dial on the snowflake syndrome.

Now for something more uplifting. At Gartner, we're in the business of making predictions. Our latest round of predictions includes some that are very positive for the future, particularly around the amount of teaching, research, and even student content being developed with the support of generative AI. A growing number of institutions are taking a hard look at operating margins and where to make digital technology investments. This relates to issue #10, Supportable, Sustainable, and Affordable, which really makes sense and can be nurtured into the future.

We've been running the Eye on Innovation Awards for a couple of years at Gartner. We do them across a variety of industries. We recently received submissions for our 2025 Education Awards, and the submissions were overwhelmingly good. They came from all over the world and included higher education and K–12. We received twice the number of submissions this year as we did last year, and the quality of the innovations showcased in these projects is incredible. It's going to be hard to pick winners. This is very exciting because it means that folks are taking hold of these new technologies and using them to solve many of the challenges that we discussed earlier in this interview. For example, we received a bunch of submissions that are focused on the metaverse, AR, and VR. The submissions are not just about deploying GenAI. It's exciting to see what's happening out there.

Are you primarily excited and optimistic or concerned and scared about higher education in 2025?

Look, I'm a little scared. I think everyone is, and I think you'd be a fool not to be, but I'm confident. I've been in this industry for over forty years. I've seen higher education band together—with help from organizations like EDUCAUSE, UCISA in the UK, and CAUDIT in Australia and New Zealand—to solve problems. Higher education is remarkably resilient that way. We're incredible colleagues in that we don't necessarily view ourselves as competitors like other industries. I'm confident that higher education can weather the storm. Some of the smartest people on the planet work in our institutions, so I know we can do this.

Overall, I'm very optimistic, and I think what's going on in higher education is sort of a perfect storm. There is a wave of challenges, which is serendipitously happening at a time when new technologies that can help us with these challenges are maturing quickly. GenAI, the metaverse, and other technology advances like quantum computing could really impact the research part of the higher education mission. So, I think there are a lot of reasons to be bullish about what the future holds.

How do you see the EDUCAUSE 2025 Top 10 issues changing the relationship between technology providers and the higher education community in the future?

I think it's imperative for technology providers to understand these complex challenges and constraints and the cost of sustaining a modern institution. They need to help us achieve the goals of increasing efficiency and effectiveness. At Gartner, we take inquiries from colleges and universities every day, and we repeatedly hear that they have aged systems on campus. They need to get them to the cloud; they need to be able to use more modern business practices and improve the student experience. Colleges and universities cannot do these things alone. We see vendors embedding AI into their products, and we need that embedded AI to be very purposeful. We need it to be understandable and prove its value.

Additionally, the cloud model has been difficult for higher education to adopt. At Gartner, because we serve many industries and not just higher education, we see that higher education is behind other sectors in cloud adoption. There are probably various reasons for that, but we need vendors to help higher education get ahead. Having a manageable licensing and cost structure and achievable migration paths are imperative. Meanwhile, the issues associated with GenAI will probably get worse before they get better, and higher education institutions can't get Faster, Better, AND Cheaper (issue #7) alone. They need their vendors to be partners in that process, and we all need to be in the same boat to achieve that success.

Reflecting on the issues list, I know they are true because I hear them too; my team talks to higher education CIOs every day. My sense is that we've known about some of these challenges for a long time, and we've been sitting on them or hoping they might resolve on their own. Time is of the essence. We've been watching this for long enough, and we have the power to really do something with some of these new technologies. It's time to get off the sideline and get in the game. Those that do will have a bright future.

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Terri-Lynn Thayer is Managing Vice President, Education Research, at Gartner.