The changing world of the higher ed IT pro

Flywire surveyed 200+ higher education IT leaders to examine their role, impact on improving the student experience, and influence on purchasing decisions around payment technology. The results provide insight into challenges they're facing and how IT's role is evolving.

When asked about what their role would be in five years time, IT leaders had a lot to say. IT leaders in higher education will be the ones “fostering innovation and cooperation, protecting student information, ensuring the institution's technical competence, and supporting the institution's digital transformation.” They will have to “make choices based on data and analytics in order to promote improvements in areas like student outcomes, operational efficiency, and cost management.”

Read our report to find out:

  • The opportunities and challenges IT leaders are facing
  • How collaboration is key to cross-campus success
  • Ways IT helps impact student satisfaction
  • How they expect the role of an IT leader to change in the future

Read the report

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Report highlights

It is abundantly clear that IT leaders care deeply about students and recognize the impact IT has on student success. Helping to drive collaboration on campus, IT leaders work tirelessly with finance and other departments to ensure students have a positive experience throughout their education journey. In fact, every single IT leader said that the best thing about their job was feeling like what they do actually helps students and their families. Some other key takeaways:

Budgeting for payment tech sits within the IT leader’s remit. 75% are directly, or partially, involved in budgeting for payment tech at their institution.

IT is critical to creating a positive student experience. 97% of IT leaders believe this, and 93% say that student satisfaction and/or retention will be a key performance metric for them within 5 years.

IT leaders are the drivers of collaboration across their institutions. They would prefer to source department-specific tech, but 98% feel they are brought into discussions with departments about their tech developments at the correct time.

At Flywire, we understand how important it is to have IT involved early in the decision when it comes to implementing student financial software. That is why we engage IT at the start of the conversation, alongside the business office.

David KingCTO, Flywire