Consumers Reshaping Higher Education - Why Now Is The Time To Embrace Change

Consumers Reshaping Higher Education - Why Now Is The Time To Embrace Change

Consumers are reshaping higher education.  In an era where Netflix allows viewers to "skip intro" and Uber users refresh their app repeatedly to reduce wait times by mere minutes, higher education institutions find themselves at a critical crossroads.  While you can skip Netflix intros with a click and refresh Uber until the wait time drops to 5 minutes or less, most colleges still expect potential students to wait for the next semester or to wait days (or even weeks) before their credits are evaluated for transfer.  The gap between everyday consumer experiences and higher education operations is widening…daily.

The New Consumer Reality – Command & Control

The student experience and technology experience are linked forever.  Full stop.  Today's learners interact with sophisticated digital platforms in the palm of their hand that prioritize speed, convenience, and personalization.  These platforms don't just respond to user preferences—they anticipate them, creating seamless experiences that put users in control.

Meanwhile, higher education has traditionally expected students to follow a defined process: apply during prescribed windows, start classes according to predetermined schedules, navigate complex bureaucratic structures, and adapt to institutional timelines rather than personal ones. This approach worked in an era when students couldn't instantly compare options on their phones or read thousands of authentic reviews from other students—back when colleges held all the cards and prospective students had limited ways to discover alternatives.  But that world no longer exists.

Today, students can find an institution with the processes that fit their preferences and easily transition without giving a second thought.  The balance of power has shifted dramatically, and many institutions haven't fully recognized the implications.

The AI Arms Race: Students vs. Faculty

Complicating this shift in consumer expectations is the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence tools among students.  Today's learners are using AI in both novice and expert ways—but they're all experimenting.   According to the Digital Education Council's 2024 Global AI Student Survey, which gathered responses from over 3,800 students across 16 countries, students are actively integrating AI into their educational processes while institutions struggle to keep pace.

A significant gap exists between student and faculty adoption rates.  According to a recent study, approximately 50% of students report regularly using generative AI tools, compared to only 22% of faculty members.  This disparity has created what some educators describe as an "arms race" between students leveraging AI for coursework and faculty attempting to adapt their teaching methods and assessment strategies in response.

Higher education now faces an urgent imperative to ensure faculty and staff become familiar with artificial intelligence programs and efficiencies to keep up with their students.  Institutions that fail to equip their educators with AI literacy risk widening the digital divide between faculty and students, potentially undermining educational effectiveness and relevance.

The Competitive Imperative

The proliferation of online learning has exponentially increased the buying power of the consumer; this, along with enrollment declines plaguing institutions of all kinds, creates the necessity of evolution or extinction.  The “Enrollment Cliff” isn’t coming – it’s here.  Institutions across the country have had to right-size their infrastructure for declining enrollment.  While executive orders and funding freezes seem to take center stage, they are simply masking the real issue – enrollment.

In this hyper-competitive landscape, institutional rigidity is a luxury no one can afford.  When a 35-year-old working professional discovers in October that their employer's tuition benefit will expire at year's end, they won't wait until January to start—they'll find an institution that offers October or November start dates.  The traditional academic calendar suddenly becomes not just an operational model but a competitive disadvantage.

The nearly 37 million Americans with "some-college-no-credential" status represent not just individual educational journeys interrupted but a systemic failure to adapt to modern consumer expectations.  These individuals didn't necessarily leave higher education because of academic challenges—many left because the operational structures couldn't accommodate their complex lives.

The Operational Gap

The growing disconnect between consumer expectations and institutional operations manifests in several critical areas:

1. Calendar Rigidity vs. Consumer Readiness: Modern learners are ready to begin their educational journey when personal circumstances align, not when the traditional academic calendar dictates.
2. 9-to-5 Support vs. 24/7 Learning: Students often complete coursework during evenings and weekends, yet institutional support services typically operate during standard business hours.
3. Manual Processes vs. Digital Expectations: Prospective students accustomed to one-click transactions encounter multi-step, often paper-based processes that feel archaic by comparison.
4. Institutional Silos vs. Seamless Experience: Modern consumers expect integrated service regardless of the department responsible, not explanations about organizational boundaries.
5. Fixed Paths vs. Personalized Journeys: Consumers expect educational pathways that recognize their unique starting points, not one-size-fits-all curricula.

Breaking the Institutional Inertia

Transforming higher education operations to meet modern consumer expectations requires challenging fundamental assumptions about how institutions should operate.  Specifically, leaders must:

• Question every policy through the lens of the modern consumer-student
• Extend service hours to align with when students engage with coursework
• Implement flexible academic calendars that allow multiple entry points throughout the year
• Modernize financial aid processes to accommodate nonstandard terms
• Invest in cloud-based technology that enables rather than constrains innovation
• Develop AI literacy among faculty and staff to match or exceed student capabilities

None of these changes compromises academic quality.  Rather, they make quality education accessible to consumers who approach education with expectations shaped by their digital experiences.

The Strategic Imperative

Higher education leaders face a defining choice: continue operating with models designed for a different era and a different student, or embrace the reality that education exists in a consumer-driven marketplace where expectations for speed, convenience, control, and technological integration are non-negotiable.

The institutions that thrive will recognize that respecting students' time and preferences isn't just good customer service—it's good business and good education.  The "skip intro" button and the “rideshare refresh” aren't just features of popular apps—they're windows into the expectations that shape how prospective students evaluate educational options.

In a landscape where adaptation means survival, the question isn't whether institutions should become more consumer-responsive—it's whether they can afford not to.