Now Is the Moment: Strategy, Not Survival, Will Define the Future of Higher Ed

With National Decision Day behind us, campuses across the country are assessing the shape of their incoming classes. For higher education leaders, it’s a moment that brings months (and often years) of strategy into sharp relief. But this year, more than most, those outcomes reflect a landscape defined by extraordinary uncertainty.

You don’t have to be an insider to see that higher education is in crisis. Isn’t it always these days? What may be less obvious to many is how the current crises have fundamentally changed both the nature and stakes of the challenges colleges and universities must overcome. The pressures facing institutions are no longer discrete or episodic—they are continuous, overlapping, compounding:

• Demographic decline is no longer a future concern but a present reality.

• Political and regulatory scrutiny has reshaped enrollment strategy and institutional decision-making.

• Financial models are under strain, even at the most well-resourced institutions, prompting budget cuts, staffing cuts, and even cuts to entire departments.

• Unprecedentedly far-reaching technological change—most notably generative AI—is beginning to alter the contours of teaching, learning, and workforce preparation and outcomes.

The result is an environment that puts even more pressure on institutions to manage constant competing demands across enrollment, finance, policy, and academic strategy—often without clear precedent. It’s a scary place to be.

Facing one of the most daunting periods of change in higher education in memory, higher education leaders feel backed into a precarious corner. But if there’s one thing we’ve learned from past times of upheaval, there’s a way out: when colleges act with clarity and purpose, and when they engage in bold strategic thinking grounded in sound empirical evidence, they don’t just survive the moment—they emerge stronger on the other side.

While current challenges are dramatically different from those that produced past crises, the principles that have enabled institutions to succeed still hold true today.

Strategy in Action: Lessons from Institutions That Moved Forward

Many of us have powerful memories of the turmoil and uncertainty created in the wake of the Great Recession. Most institutions responded by tightening their belts, making budgetary cuts where necessary and delaying investment in strategies that may have increased their ability to attract and serve students. Some resisted the urge to retrench and instead leaned into longer term strategy. The University of Chicago used the moment to sharpen its undergraduate experience and further elevate its national standing. It engaged in careful ideation and planning, and, through rigorous market research was able to identify academic, co-curricular and student life initiatives it would carry out, leading to a transformation of the lived experience of its students as well as market perceptions of the university. During roughly the same period of time, Providence College took similarly bold steps with respect to pricing. Where it might have paused its plan of increasing costs to the level of its closest peers, College leadership pushed ahead, making counterintuitive but impeccably researched financial moves that helped fund its long-term priorities and grow its academic and residential appeal.

In addition to testing the financial strength of colleges and universities, the COVID-19 pandemic applied an entirely novel stressor to those that had already accumulated around the higher education enterprise—a major disruption of instructional delivery modalities, with many shifting to a fully online approach. Among the institutions we had the honor to work with around this time was Allegheny College. Just one week before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Allegheny was prepared to launch a bold new strategic plan. But when the crisis hit, rather than pressing forward with a pre-crisis roadmap, leadership paused and re-evaluated everything. They used the moment not to retreat, but to rethink—and re-ground their approach in what students most valued.

Through careful market research, Allegheny explored a potential overhaul of its academic model, considering broad, interdisciplinary themes as a new organizing principle. But testing revealed something even more powerful: prospective students were drawn to the college’s distinctive requirement to pursue both a major and a minor in different disciplines. This model’s inherent flexibility and relevance resonated with prospective students far more than would an abstract thematic framework.

Armed with this insight, Allegheny adapted, re-energizing and refining programs that were already serving students well and, if leveraged properly, could provide the College with a more compelling distinction in the market: It expanded major-minor combinations, enhanced personalized advising, and clarified its academic message in ways that aligned with student goals and future outcomes. The result? A college that is not only better prepared to weather a crisis, but one that heightened its value proposition in a highly competitive landscape.

Rethinking the Turn

One of the striking realities today is that no institution is immune—not even the best resourced. Even elite universities are facing application declines, political scrutiny, and funding instability. But rather than spelling doom, this environment should remind us of a critical truth: a shifting playing field provides opportunity—not to opportunistically “win” at another’s expense, but to refocus on mission, articulate real value, and serve students in ways that resonate internally and externally.

In moments like this, survival—meeting enrollment goals, making budget cuts, raising money, managing reputation—can feel like the sole imperative. However, those who invest additional time and energy in long-term planning—grounded in data and aligned with their mission—position themselves not just to survive, but to evolve and emerge as stronger institutions.

Those who are most successful know that it’s not enough (or even appropriate) to simply adopt approaches that have worked at other colleges. Instead, they focus on identifying what matters most to their institution—its students, community, and markets—and using that understanding to guide decisions about academic offerings, student life, financial models, and communications.

Strategic change does not have to mean radical reinvention. In fact, the smartest shifts are often refinements of what already makes a college special—but with a sharper edge, clearer message, and stronger proof of impact.

Decision day may have just passed, but the strategic choices that will define future classes are being made right now.

What Still Works

We’ve shared before what works in moments of disruption, and those principles are just as relevant now. But in this new context, they take on even greater urgency. Here’s how we’d restate them today:

• Make time for long-term thinking. Even in the face of daily crises, institutions must carve out space to think beyond the current storm. Delaying strategy is a decision in itself—and rarely a winning one.

• Engage the community. Bring faculty, staff, students, and trustees into the process. The best strategies are not handed down—they’re built collaboratively and informed by the people closest to the work.

• Go beyond marketing fixes. Strategy is not a new slogan, website, or a rebrand. It’s about rethinking the core student experience, from curriculum to support to career outcomes, and aligning that experience with what students and families are truly seeking.

• Listen to the market. Gather data. Market test your ideas. Find out what works—not just to increase appeal, but to actually change decisions in your favor.

• Make sure people know. Even the best strategy needs champions. Your enrollment, advancement, and communications teams need to be fully integrated and empowered to effectively tell the story—internally and externally.

Above all: ACT. This is not a time for hesitation. The institutions that lean into uncertainty with purpose and discipline will not only weather this moment—they will define what comes next.