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So I have experience in higher education (for decades), as a consumer of technology, as well as the key player in implementation of software for campuses: This

So I have experience in higher education (for decades), as a consumer of technology, as well as the key player in implementation of software for campuses: This is a field with many opportunities for technology growth, but there are two problems. 1. Many of the ed tech "solutions" are just pretty packaging on the same three services (scheduling, generic student/institution information databases, student tracking). There is very, very, very little actual innovation in this space. One or two exceptions to this rule are in the accessibility realm, and are genuinely interesting, but are mostly just knock-offs of each other with little real innovation in the last three to five years. 2. There is a butt-load of inertia behind the big players, and higher ed institutions are notoriously difficult to convince to change anything, let alone their core infrastructure. This is probably the largest opportunity, but the hardest to get into. The companies that run databases for institutions are massive, and ingrained into the culture at most places. But they're also incredibly un-user friendly, and are massively expensive.

mind-blight 4y ago
Anecdotally, I've also heard: 3. There is limited or no budget for software that does new things, only for software that manages existing core issues Which then makes 2 a bigger problem. Does that fit with your experience?
- Loughla 4y ago
  It really depends. The last two years were a prime time for ed tech that was absolutely missed (outside of Canvas and zoom/teams). There was a TON of grant money and state/federal money that was used for new initiatives. I don't believe any company took advantage of that, and that's to their detriment. For example; the institution I am working with right now just invested about $500k (on an 18.1mil annual institutional budget, for context) in two new software implementations with our existing vendor, with an ongoing 50k annually for almost zero support on the vendor's part. I did the leg work on finding the fit for that. As soon as the covid dollars were announced to education, ed tech companies should've been just absolutely all over their institutional contacts. But, it does absolutely fit with what you said. Those new implementations were not 'new' but were new features within existing infrastructure. It's less about no money for managing new things, but more about finding out how to make administration understand that the 'new' is really just focused on alleviating core issues. Again, from our most recent purchase - this is just a new wrapper on existing data. But, it can free up three full-time staff positions to either focus on recruitment and retention instead of processing, and/or it can allow for an entire department to shift focus and be MUCH more succinct with their processes. Either way, the cost savings was there within 5 years. But No one from the ed tech companies took the time to get to know anything at all about the institution. Had I not been there consulting, they would've just kept moving on. The opportunities (and massive paychecks for just a little work) are there, but they're not easy to find. I know 500k and 50k are not big dollar amounts, but that is a substantial portion of the institution's budget for one initiative - they just happen to be a small school. My experience with massive colleges and universities is in line with the small institution as well; there's just more bureaucracy at those places.

mind-blight 4y ago

Anecdotally, I've also heard: 3. There is limited or no budget for software that does new things, only for software that manages existing core issues Which then makes 2 a bigger problem. Does that fit with your experience?

Loughla 4y ago
It really depends. The last two years were a prime time for ed tech that was absolutely missed (outside of Canvas and zoom/teams). There was a TON of grant money and state/federal money that was used for new initiatives. I don't believe any company took advantage of that, and that's to their detriment. For example; the institution I am working with right now just invested about $500k (on an 18.1mil annual institutional budget, for context) in two new software implementations with our existing vendor, with an ongoing 50k annually for almost zero support on the vendor's part. I did the leg work on finding the fit for that. As soon as the covid dollars were announced to education, ed tech companies should've been just absolutely all over their institutional contacts. But, it does absolutely fit with what you said. Those new implementations were not 'new' but were new features within existing infrastructure. It's less about no money for managing new things, but more about finding out how to make administration understand that the 'new' is really just focused on alleviating core issues. Again, from our most recent purchase - this is just a new wrapper on existing data. But, it can free up three full-time staff positions to either focus on recruitment and retention instead of processing, and/or it can allow for an entire department to shift focus and be MUCH more succinct with their processes. Either way, the cost savings was there within 5 years. But No one from the ed tech companies took the time to get to know anything at all about the institution. Had I not been there consulting, they would've just kept moving on. The opportunities (and massive paychecks for just a little work) are there, but they're not easy to find. I know 500k and 50k are not big dollar amounts, but that is a substantial portion of the institution's budget for one initiative - they just happen to be a small school. My experience with massive colleges and universities is in line with the small institution as well; there's just more bureaucracy at those places.