With threats to higher education seemingly everywhere, institutions are increasingly considering a valuable idea most people learned in pre-school – sharing.
Systemization is the more modern word for sharing in education, though the word can be deceptive. It does not necessarily mean a full, formal system like a state university system. Systemization is a planned mindset and practice of working together, sharing resources, functions, or opportunities to maximize specific benefits or outcomes.
As I explored in detail in a new research whitepaper commissioned by higher education technology provider Ellucian, systemization is not a new idea. But the practice is gaining in acceptance and popularity while delivering real results for schools, oversight authorities, communities, and most importantly, students.
When thinking through the benefits of sharing, three areas are quickly apparent. Throughout more than two months of interviews with more than two dozen experts, advisors, and practitioners nearly everyone mentioned the big three – scale, efficiencies in administration and spending, and the ability to level-up teaching and school services through sharing best practices.
“Perhaps the greatest benefit of systems,” Daniel Greenstein, the immediate former Chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education said for the whitepaper, “is that they’re agents of change at scale. Look at California, or SUNY, or Minnesota, or in Pennsylvania, when you have a functioning system, you can touch hundreds of thousands of students at once.”
Beyond scale, administrative efficiency and sharing best practices, interviews and research brought forward six less often discussed areas where system integrations may be especially potent – data, system security, student experience and outcomes, reporting and compliance, institutional equity, and community and stakeholder benefits.
In California, for example, the state’s 116 community colleges operate in 73 quasi-independent districts. But last year, state leaders approved and funded a proof project called the Common Cloud Data Platform (CCDP). Joined initially by six community college districts, the goal of the CCDP is to develop a shared data system, on a common data platform. Once established and expanded, the new common data system will add efficiency, reduce fraud, increase the speed and accuracy of compliance, and reduce security risks.
“This unified, scalable platform will leverage real-time data and AI to enhance financial-aid fraud detection and mitigation, streamline associate degree transfers, support student success initiatives, and improve operational efficiencies,” said Rupa Saran, Vice Chancellor and Chief Information Technology Officer at Coast Colleges, and leader of the CCDP project.
So far, the CCDP project is on time and on budget and more districts are expected to join later this year, leaders said.
Cybersecurity is another important, but often overlooked arena where system thinking and cooperation can help colleges and universities.
James R. Johnsen, with the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley, raised this issue in a recent paper, writing, “cyber insecurity may now be exceeding the response capabilities of individual campuses,” and that systems “should play a key role helping those campuses and our states and larger society navigate this digital security challenge.”
“Centralizing and securing institutional data allows colleges and universities to better serve their students while maintaining the integrity of their systems,” said Michael Wulff, Chief Product & Technology Officer at Ellucian.
Systemization, many experts said, could also drastically improve student experiences and outcomes. Online Idaho, for example, allows students in participating schools to take courses in line with degree requirements from any institution in the system, regardless of their home campus.
Initiated in 2022, an initiative to allow HBCUs to share courses and offer flexibility to students, started with ten schools but now has more than two dozen. Member institutions report increased revenue and lowered costs in the sharing system.
Cecilia Holden, President and CEO of myFutureNC, an education advocacy organization affiliated with the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce, said that there, “we have community colleges and University of North Carolina schools partnering to be able to look at data and do a reverse transfer, sending credit back to community colleges for a two-year degree. That’s already resulted in several hundred degrees being conferred because of reverse transfer.”
The whitepaper also says, “using systems to obtain a greater balance of institutional equity was not easy, as stakeholders in the better-known, better-resourced schools may support the idea, but may bristle at what advancing equity actually requires. Still, since inequalities are stubborn and historic, a system approach may be among the best ways to make progress.”
Stronger, more efficient schools benefit their communities and states by enhancing the skill and quality of the workforce, increasing the number of good jobs, and boosting home ownership and tax revenue.
Shannon Bryant is the Executive Director of Workforce & Economic Development for the Minnesota State Colleges & Universities System, which is the fourth largest education system in the country. In a recent media interview, Bryant said it was “key for institutions of higher education these days … to make sure that when students come out they have a good job waiting on them.” She added, “some of the big statewide initiatives are important that we approach it from the systems perspective.”
Overall, moving institutions closer together will not be easy, experts say. But from the paper, “the ability to deliver progress at scale makes investments in systemization worth the effort. Systems approaches are the only way to deliver improved educational performance for any large number of students on any reasonable timeline. Even those who express cautions and concerns regarding education systems agree on its capacity to deliver much change relatively quickly.”
Working together is not just about being more efficient. Thinking collectively and finding places where goals align can serve students and protect institutions, even helping them grow and prosper in challenging and uncertain times. We should expect, and welcome, more of it.