By Derek Newton
Reposted from Forbes, with permission
Whether AI will revolutionize the teaching and learning experience is an open question.
If an AI revolution is coming to education – to higher education in particular – the most likely place to find it will not be in the classroom, but in the administration and management of the schools themselves. That revolution, according to Kim Fahey, CEO of Collegis Education, is already happening.
Collegis works with higher education institutions to strengthen and grow their services and enrollments, positioning itself as an “innovation enabler” and alternative to established, traditional online program managers (OPM). The company has worked with schools such as St. Louis University, College of Western Idaho, and St. Francis University in Pennsylvania.
“AI certainly has shifted partner expectations, but those expectations are often unrealistic,” Fahey said. “Too many schools hope that AI will be the easy button to solve all their problems, but that isn’t the case,” she said. Continuing, she said, “Almost everyone is finding a way to work AI into their offering. Everything now is ‘AI-powered’ and claims to solve all your problems, get instant results with no intervention required. All this does is set the stage for overpromising and underdelivering, leaving schools with limited to no ROI on their AI investments.”
That doesn’t mean AI can’t drive impact at a school, as Fahey put it. She says it can, but that, “it just means you have to do the hard work first. A school can’t be AI-enabled until it’s AI-ready, and it all starts with data. Data fuels the AI engine. Without accurate, clean data, your AI outputs will be lackluster.”
When institutions can get it right, Fahey says, there are many ways in which artificial intelligence tools and practices can help schools improve.
“From a back-of-house perspective, AI enables higher ed teams to automate a good amount of highly manual and simple tasks, which gives those teams time back to really focus on more complex challenges and big-picture thinking,” Fahey said.
The CEO also says that, already, “AI can help drive your investments in marketing, student recruitment, and retention. This is critical even in today’s challenging higher-ed market. Higher ed teams tend to be very lean, and AI solutions can help introduce new capabilities and offset capacity limitations by creating efficiency — working smarter over harder, doing more with less.”
Good AI implementation can help students too, doing things such as advising and tutoring, Fahey says.
“While some students prefer talking to a real person, others are more comfortable talking with AI. It provides a sense of anonymity while still providing highly accurate outputs. AI advancement now gives them that option,” Fahey said.
“The schools that are setting themselves up to be successful in the age of AI are the ones that are taking a hard look at all the systems, all the technologies, all the processes, and they’re starting to prioritize centralizing their data because they recognize that AI is only as good as the data you feed it,” Fahey said.
To help schools organize, access, and use their data, Collegis is working with Google Cloud. And according to Brad Hoffman, Director, State and Local Government and Higher Education, at Google Public Sector, the dynamic can be transformative for schools.
“Educational institutions are experiencing a fundamental shift in their operational and management systems, driven by AI’s ability to improve data-driven decision making. Higher education institutions often struggle to unlock their full potential due to persistent data silos. AI can be used as a bridge, integrating data from various departments into a unified platform. AI-powered analytics tools can enable institutions to extract meaningful insights from this integrated data, leading to informed decision-making. This includes deeper insights into student performance and operational efficiency,” Hoffman said.
For what it all means to those observing higher education, the impact of AI, or both, Fahey says she’s seeing two things right away.
“We’re seeing a clear surge in technology spending, but with a key emphasis on integrated systems and unlocking the power of data,” she said. And that, “a significant challenge remains – the required skillset. You can’t overlook that part. Higher education IT teams are often burdened with operational tasks, leaving limited bandwidth for strategic AI initiatives.” She added later that, “the speed of technological evolution, especially in AI, is outpacing the capabilities of many traditional IT teams.”
When asked what most people may be missing behind the scenes as this technology shift unfolds at colleges and universities, Fahey says competitive fear is an underappreciated driver.
“The tech evolution is moving at a pace far greater than I have seen. Outside of bigger universities with larger technology and R&D budgets, others cannot keep up. The most critical aspect often overlooked, particularly concerning smaller private colleges and universities, is the sheer intensity of the competitive pressures they face. It’s a fight for survival, not simply a race for innovation,” Fahey said.
Her use of the word “evolution” may be right on, as that may be exactly what is happening. High levels of competition, fear, and powerful new tools feel like essential elements of evolution – advancement. At such pivot points, some will learn to use the tools to survive, and probably grow. Others will not.