The theme of the 2025 Southern Association of College & University Business Officers (SACUBO) Annual Meeting was “Adapting to New Realities in Higher Education,” and the messages imparted in the sessions effectively reflected that. Forvis Mazars delivered three instructional sessions covering GASB updates, strategic academic planning, and value-added student services.
This article will address a few key insights from the conference.
1. Generations on Campus
With the enrollment cliff looming, institutions may start to seek increased enrollment from non-traditional students. With increasing life expectancy in the U.S. creating the “era of longevity,” older Americans are considering, now more than ever, the possibility of returning to college to continue their trend of lifelong learning by starting a second career after retirement. An insightful discussion was held around on-campus readiness for this generation.
In addition, Generation Alpha will be on campus soon. Born between 2010 and 2024, and like Gen Z before, this generation was born with access to the digital world and doesn’t know life without an internet-connected device. Their needs surrounding technology interaction, mental health, and social interaction on campus will impact dining, residence halls, and other student services. Also, the future of student recruiting could depend on an institution’s ability to meet these needs.
2. Innovation
The timely keynote presentation noted that it’s easier to drive change in hard times—and that’s what we’re facing in higher education. However, innovation on campus can be challenging with the daily volume of conflicting priorities that institutional leadership faces. Innovation can be strategic and can arise from adapting and being willing to fail. The recommendation to “micro-dose innovation” was thought-provoking as many of us can be change-resistant and afraid to fail. By “taking more shots on goal,” institutions can fail fast and fail small if innovative ideas don’t work. By breaking down the failures, institutions can learn valuable lessons on key areas, including why students don’t return, why prospects don’t matriculate, and why innovative ideas fail.
Multiple institutions discussed revenue innovation. Schools are seeking new revenue diversification through energy as a service as more rural campuses install solar farms. Others are getting creative by building full-service hotels and dining facilities on campus to not only generate revenue from their sports fans and visitors, but also to create locations for instruction in culinary arts and hospitality management.
3. Athletic Program Challenges
The intersection of athletics and academics is complicated, at best. The “wild, wild west” of college athletics is proving to be just that. Sessions discussed the name, image, and likeness (NIL) settlements, conference realignment, collaborating with your local government, and the impact of athletics on bond ratings. Regardless of institution, size, and conference, many institutions face the same problem—donor fatigue. Likely, everyone on campus is looking for resources from the same sources. However, private equity has emerged in the discussion as a potential new funding source for some institutions.
The evaluation of financial operating results of athletic programs was also discussed. Some institutions align athletic and institutional operating and capital budgets, and others keep those budgets separate. One great reminder from a panelist was that, at the end of the day, it’s a collaboration between athletics and the institution where everyone needs to be on the same page. The intersection of athletic and institutional budgeting can work well when athletics, academia, and administration are aligned and part of the decision-making process. One important point that’s challenging to quantify is that often, the true economic impact of athletic programs isn’t found on the profit and loss statement, as it can impact both the institution and the community in ways that are hard to measure.
4. Conducting Meaningful Analytics
It’s one thing to say that you need to make data-informed decisions. It’s another to figure out how to develop a philosophy of analytics on your campus. You know you need data, but you may not have good data governance in place. You know you need to lean into complex modeling, but you may lack the tools and knowledge on campus to perform those analyses. You may even have personnel who can run circles around statistics, but you struggle to identify strategic questions to drive your approach. NACUBO shared some new grant-funded thoughtware from the “Change With Analytics Playbook”1 to address some of these issues.
There were also quite a few concrete success stories from institutions using analytics. Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology, for instance, won the 2nd Runner-Up in the Best Practices Award for their work in strategic academic planning—intentional use of internal economic and external market research to drive growth.
5. Change Is the Only Constant
This year’s theme says it all. Sessions focused on “adapting,” “change,” “innovation,” and “potential.” In addition to our presentations at SACUBO, Forvis Mazars has been invited to give presentations on change management at NACUBO, EACUBO, CACUBO, and other events this year. Our 2025 Annual Higher Education Outlook provides valuable data on perceptions about change resistance, as well as a case study on effective change management. We anticipate actionable tactics for change and change readiness to be key themes as we move into the next fiscal year.
Conclusion
The 2025 SACUBO Annual Meeting was a success. Not only did our team learn more about the issues facing our higher education colleagues, but we also connected with friends, old and new. We’re looking forward to the October SACUBO Fall Workshop in New Orleans. If you have any questions or need assistance, please contact a professional at Forvis Mazars.
- 1“Change With Analytics Playbook,” changewithanalytics.com.