6 Ways Data Will Make Your Institution More Resilient

Resilience is more vital for institutions today than ever before. Why? Because the challenges facing higher education are rapidly stacking up. Changing learner demographics, competition from accessible and easy-to-use online learning tools, and job market demands for skilled employees are making it more difficult for institutions to identify, attract, and retain students. Student expectations are rapidly evolving alongside technological advancements, and an increase in ransomware attacks is causing many institutions to allocate a large portion of their budget to cybersecurity.

Internally, institutions face similar challenges. Staff want more flexibility in how and where they work and more pay. IT personnel are tasked with taking on increasingly complex technological projects—often without efficient staffing or monetary support. Learners want more personalized and streamlined learning experiences. Combined, these challenges are putting monumental financial strain on already tight institutional budgets.

As institutions seek to combat these challenges and improve resiliency, many don't realize they have a secret weapon at their disposal: data.

The Real Duty of Data

Data holds many of the answers that colleges and universities need to be more resilient; however, institutions need the means to unlock data's full potential. Being able to aggregate, store, analyze, compare, and understand data enables institutions to apply insights gleaned from the data to make informed decisions about their operations, processes, or strategies. Data can help institutions evolve and transform into the frequently spoken about yet often undefined next generation of higher education.

Data can empower institutions to implement more effective and personalized enrollment strategies, drive more informed budgeting decisions, and power artificial intelligence capabilities to build out and manage modern academic programs. Data can also shed light on areas where resources are not properly optimized and reveal operational gaps or silos that may be contributing to miscommunication, poor collaboration, and disjointed experiences.

But there's even better news: Most institutions already possess the data they need to become more resilient. Let's look at a few ways institutions can use the data already in their possession to improve resilience, which can lead to stronger brands, increased financial stability, and innovations that will power growth for years to come.

1. Enroll and Retain More Students

As an institutional leader, you probably already have a mountain of data on your students. But are you using it to its full potential?

Changing enrollment trends have left many institutions scrambling for solutions. However, if you look at historical data, you can identify your best-fit students, including their demographics, educational experiences, community involvement, financial backgrounds, and more. This information can help you build targeted marketing campaigns that improve your yield and enable you to more accurately forecast enrollment numbers. Data on your most engaging or high-performing programs can also be leveraged in your marketing materials to attract students interested in those areas.

Part of this analysis can include an evaluation of the revenue generated from different demographics. International or out-of-state students can sometimes generate more revenue for an institution than in-state students, making a case to strengthen recruitment efforts in neighboring states or specific countries.

Similarly, reviewing dropout and stop-out patterns can help define what a typical at-risk student looks like at your institution. For instance, knowing if a student is working full- or part-time, has a family or is the first generation in their family to attend college, or receives low scores in foundational courses can help you identify whether that student might be at-risk. By knowing which learner cohorts are least likely to persist, you can combat—and hopefully reverse—those trends by implementing proactive measures to keep at-risk students engaged throughout their academic journey. You can also leverage this data to inform your financial aid packages and build more tailored offers that attract your right-fit students and ensure they have the monetary support to remain on campus throughout their tenure.

2. Strengthen Your Financial Resilience

Your institution's financial data can also help you build more accurate forecasts to improve short- and long-term planning. By analyzing historical trends and various economic scenarios, you can learn how different events or programs impact your bottom line. Knowing this, you can build contingency plans that will better ensure your long-term outlook.

Additionally, you can track expenses and identify spending patterns to shed light on inefficiencies or areas of overspending. For instance, evaluating vendor costs and negotiating prices annually can dramatically change your institutional spending. These insights can also help you identify areas where you will see the most return on investment, such as academic programming, faculty training, or technology funding.

Comparing this information with industry benchmarks and enrollment data can even help you make cuts or other changes to remain competitive with peer institutions.

3. Enhance Your Academic Portfolio

Accessing data on academic program performance can go a long way toward making an institution more resilient. Are significantly more students registering for courses in one program than they are in another? Do classes held at certain times tend to have better attendance? Are face-to-face courses more or less popular than online or hybrid courses? Does the cost of running a program outweigh the benefits of holding that course in person on campus? Do students who complete certain programs have more success in the job market after graduation?

Gathering this information enables you to tailor your curriculum to meet your students' needs while remaining on track with your institutional and financial objectives. Analyzing grades, test scores, and course evaluations will help you identify where students excel or struggle. Tracking student engagement with course materials, classroom participation, and completion rates will allow you to accurately adjust curricula and pedagogies. Monitoring employment rates, salary data, and career progression can help you learn how well your programs prepare students for their preferred careers.

Qualitative data, such as feedback from students, is equally important. It can help you identify effective teaching strategies or faculty. This may reveal where you need to invest in additional faculty, support, or development.

4. Optimize Resource Allocation

Resource optimization on campus goes beyond balancing the budget sheet; you also need to ensure your IT, personnel, and institutional resources are appropriately allocated. Understanding where and how you leverage these resources can help you identify areas where they can be better utilized.

Analyzing workflow data can help you identify bottlenecks and determine where to leverage automation. On many campuses, staff are overburdened and forced to contend with outdated processes and increasingly complex student needs. Incorporating new technologies that use automation to speed up traditional, manual processes can improve staff efficiency and free up their time.

How you leverage your campus facilities can also play a big role in your long-term resilience, especially as financial challenges stack up. Monitoring energy usage data, maintenance costs, occupancy levels, and other information from building management systems can help your institution optimize maintenance schedules and reduce operational costs.

5. Keep Your Campus Connected

When all stakeholders—students, staff, faculty, leadership, etc.—use the same information, it's easier to collaborate, make more informed decisions, and provide the personalized experiences that learners have come to expect.

When it comes to the student experience, your data can tell you which communication tools are the most effective and how to maintain them to keep everyone on campus engaged. You can also use student data to customize messaging and communications, which can foster a better sense of community.

Student data also provides insight into the overall well-being of your student body. Understanding how learners use counseling services, which on-campus events they attend, or how they engage with faculty will enable you to provide better support and advising services. This real-time pulse on student engagement and sentiment can go a long way in ensuring your students are not only mentally and emotionally healthy but also feel connected to your institution.

6. Strengthen Your Business Continuity Efforts

One of the biggest threats to institutional resilience is an unexpected crisis. Unfortunately, unplanned crises are bound to occur, whether those incidents are natural disasters, unexpected activity spikes on your systems, or malicious cyberattacks from outsiders that incur downtime. Building data-driven crisis management plans and business continuity initiatives will help you prepare for these events.

The ability to adapt is crucial in the event of an emergency. Looking at historical data can give you insights into patterns of potential disruptions. You can use these insights to identify commonalities when monitoring data in real time, giving you time and information to mitigate risk before an emergency happens.

If you run drills and perform disaster recovery training, you can collect and analyze data from these initiatives to identify areas that may need to be refined or optimized. You can also audit and compare this information to industry regulations to ensure your institution is compliant and meets standards.

Resilience Requires Resourcefulness

Higher education institutions have mountains of data. When properly utilized, this data is currency. But understanding this data requires a great deal of time and energy. Not only must the data be unified and consistent, it must also be regularly analyzed and interpreted. Each piece of data tells a story, but many institutions that are strapped for resources lack the means to successfully put their data to work. This is why so many institutions have turned to Jenzabar. At Jenzabar, we leverage our sophisticated ecosystem of modern solutions and deep domain expertise to help institutions like yours harness the power of their data and make informed, important decisions that drive institutional resilience.

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Chris Morgan is Associate Vice President of Innovation at Jenzabar.