Balancing Mission
and Markets
The Future of the Higher Education Offer
Nous Group is an international management consultancy with over 800 people working across Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and the UK. With our broad consulting capability, we can solve your most complex strategic challenges and partner with you through transformational change. Together, Nous and Cubane form one of the most authoritative higher education service businesses operating today – a true leader in higher education with global expertise.
Contact Us
Contact Us
System planning and design
Engagement and co-design
Service redesign and integration
Monitoring and evaluation
To maintain and enhance their educational offerings, universities must deftly balance mission and market, tradition and innovation, industry needs and academic pursuit. In short, universities must walk a tightrope – navigating the expectations of different stakeholders and carefully balancing the competing pressures to provide high-quality teaching and learning to students.
About the REPORT
Six strategic challenges
CHALLENGE 1
Cost growth outpacing revenue growth
More student, more diverse learning needs and preferences
Increasing expectations to produce job-fit graduates
70 university
operational
leaders ACROSS
CLOSE X
More students, more diverse learning needs and preferences
A global trend of greater participation in higher education systems means that universities are educating larger and more diverse student populations. This presents challenges for the traditional education model which does not necessarily cater to heterogenous learning needs and preferences. Universities are catalysts for social and economic mobility, but for this to succeed for historically underrepresented groups a different mix of educational supports and services is required to ensure access and success.
Australia
New Zealand
UK
Canada
IRELAND
Get the latest insighst from our University COO Survey report.
This report was informed by surveys, conducted between February and May 2024, of more than 200 university leaders and academics with teaching roles and over 1,200 university students in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. These surveys were supplemented by 24 in-depth interviews with university leaders and sector experts in each country. Additional insight was provided by higher education leaders from across Nous Group.
AUTHORS
To understand the challenges that universities face and the opportunities to enhance their educational offerings, Nous Group surveyed more than 200 university leaders and academics with teaching roles and over 1,200 university students in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. These surveys were supplemented by 24 in-depth interviews with university leaders and sector experts in each country.
The scope of this study is deliberately broad – covering what universities teach, how programs and courses are structured, what learning outcomes they seek to achieve, the practices and modes of education delivery, and the organisational enablers of teaching and learning excellence.
We have distilled findings from this study into six strategic challenges and four areas of opportunity for universities to maintain and enhance the quality of their educational offerings.
Download the Report
Download the Report
INTRODUCTION
Universities face many challenges to providing high-quality teaching and learning to their students. A confluence of societal, economic, demographic and technological trends that collectively create an environment in which universities cannot afford to stand still.
Unrelenting technological
change spearheaded by artificial intelligence
The values and relevance of universities under question
Academic workforce stress
Zac Ashkanasy
GLOBAL HE LEAD,
NOUS GROUP
zac.ashkanasy@nousgroup.com
Download Balancing Mission and Markets
Get the latest insighst from our University COO Survey report.
Download Summary Report
Download Summary Report
CLOSE X
Cost growth outpacing revenue growth
Many universities are grappling with rising operational and capital costs, while global inflationary pressures and government policy changes threaten to erode real revenues. In the context of these financial pressures, many universities may need to make difficult decisions about where costs can be reduced and strategic decisions about what to offer, to ensure a mission-centred but sustainable educational offering.
CHALLENGE 2
Average Annual full-time undergraduate domestic tuition fees, nominal and real*
CLOSE X
Increasing expectations to produce job-fit graduates
Universities face increase pressures – from the governments that fund them, the students that attend them, and industry that employs their graduates – to enhance students’ employability and job-readiness. Preparing students for a rapidly changing world of work presents many strategic challenges for universities’ educational offerings. More fundamentally, many university leaders and academics understandably resist the idea that the primary purpose of a university education is to ‘optimise’ for employability.
CHALLENGE 3
“There is a fundamental difference between cultural formation through bodies of knowledge, compared with the tasks and nature of work. The transition
is rocky.”
Global higher education expert
CLOSE X
Unrelenting technological change spearheaded
by artificial intelligence
Many universities recognise the need to adopt a culture and practice of continuous innovation to ensure that educational offerings, teaching methods and learning outcomes are informed by technological developments. Across this study, university leaders and teaching academics consistently identified generative artificial intelligence as a major trend that will influence how universities deliver education, one that universities are only beginning to grapple with in a strategic way.
CHALLENGE 4
“People are going to use [AI], you can’t stop it. We need to carefully think about how we use it and start shaping AI literacy earlier rather than later”
UNIVERSITY LEADER SURVEY
To what extent do you agree with the following statement? Technological advancements will fundamentally alter how university education (including assessment) is delivered over the next 5-10 years.
Which of these trends will most influence how universities deliver education over the next 5-10 years?
Professor of Higher Education interviewed
in this study
UNIVERSITY STUDENT SURVEY
How important were the following factors in choosing what and where to study?
Employment opportunities was rated as the most important factor for students in choosing what and where to study across all surveyed jurisdictions (Australia, Canada, UK), all age groups, undergraduates and graduates, and all disciplines.
*2012 to 2023 recorded CPI; 2024 OECD projected CPI; 2025 to 2029 estimate at 2.75%, Fees expressed in terms of local currency (Australian dollars, pounds sterling, and Canadian dollars respectively)
CLOSE X
Academic workforce stress
Academics with teaching responsibilities face a range of barriers to providing high quality teaching, from administrative burdens and trends towards casualisation to more diverse student bodies and pressures to prioritise research. Equipping teaching academics with the tools, capabilities and time to provide high-quality teaching to students is a significant challenge for many universities.
CHALLENGE 5
“[We are] expected to more directly guide students who see themselves more as consumers due to dramatically increased fees.”
UNIVERSITY ACADEMIC SURVEY
To what extent are you supported by your university to deliver high quality teaching?
To what extent do the following factors present a barrier for you to provide high quality teaching to students?
Teaching academic surveyed in this study
30%
54%
9%
7%
121
91
76
53
19
18
30%
54%
9%
7%
Limited time allocation for teaching commitments
78%
73%
Limited pay for teaching
67%
Handling student requests (e.g. special considerations)
66%
Student sensitivities about talking openly on difficult topics
65%
Pressures from management and others about what or how to teach
Balancing teching and research commitments
64%
Physical infrastruture technology equipment and other resources
63%
Limited access to industry partners
62%
CLOSE X
The values and relevance of universities under question
There are signs of growing scepticism about the value and relevance of a university education. Universities are not immune from declining social trust in institutions, as polarisation and social fragmentation seep into university campuses and classrooms. In some quarters the value of a university qualification is under increasing scrutiny.
CHALLENGE 6
“As educators, we find ourselves in the midst of these polarising debates, often without the full arsenal of tools and strategies we need to manage these dynamics effectively.”
University academic leader
INTRODUCTION
More students, more diverse learning needs and preferences
Cost growth outpacing revenue growth
Increasing expectations to produce job-fit graduates
Academic workforce stress
The values and relevance of universities under question
Six strategic challenges
Notwithstanding these strategic challenges, universities are resilient institutions. In this study, we discuss the solutions universities use, and can increasingly adopt, to create and refine their educational offerings.
Designing a distinct and sustainable portfolio
A contemporary curriculum that demonstrates the enduring values of the academy
Enhanced education delivery across multiple modes and diverse pedagogies
Investing in the core enablers of high-quality teaching and learning
Four opportunity areas
Unrelenting technological
change spearheaded by artificial intelligence
CLOSE X
Designing a distinct and sustainable portfolio
Universities face a range of challenges in delivering an education portfolio that is authentic to their academic and social mission while being financially sustainable. To meet these competing demands, universities need to build a robust evidence base to make informed decisions about their education portfolios. Rapidly developing and deploying educational offerings is increasingly important and can be enabled by simplified course and program structures. Over the long-term universities may consider developing a more specialised educational offer that plays to their strengths.
OPPORTUNITY AREA 1
"The reason we add to the curriculum, is we’re not brave enough to pull it apart. And sometimes, it’s because we’re not close enough to industry to know how to rebuild. We’re slow to change, we tinker around the edges rather than thinking about how we genuinely address the problem"
UNIVERSITY LEADER SURVEY
What are the major barriers that your university faces in reducting the time to market for new education products?
Teaching academic surveyed in this study
CLOSE X
A contemporary curriculum that demonstrates the enduring values of the academy
Demands on the university curriculum can seem insurmountable, as universities balance meeting the needs of industry and support employability with cultivating well-rounded, autonomous and civically engaged graduates. Curriculums should consciously articulate the balance of technical and human skills for different disciplines and create tangible connections to real world problems. A more flexible curriculum helps to meet students’ diverse needs and support their lifelong learning. But too much flexibility can be overwhelming for students and can undermine social contexts that facilitate learning. The challenge is to provide just enough choice and flexibility.
OPPORTUNITY AREA 2
"Privileging employability neglects the potential of the curriculum as a space in which thought, critique and imagination might be nurtured.”
UNIVERSITY STUDENT SURVEY
What is the ideal number of options from which you should be able to select a major(s) for your degree?
Ronald Barnett, The Philosophy of Higher Education (1st edition), 2020: 128.
9%
4%
9%
34%
44%
no preference
10+
7-9
4-6
1-3
CLOSE X
Enhanced education delivery across multiple modes and diverse pedagogies
Universities and their academics increasingly need to teach across different delivery modes, bringing to bear pedagogical expertise to meet the diverse learning needs, preferences and capacities of students. Delivering a meaningful experience for online, hybrid and blended learning requires considerable time, effort and attention informed by pedagogy. Harnessing AI to improve teaching and learning is both an immediate and long-term priority for universities, however an immediate focus on risks means that the potential of these tools to enhance teaching and learning remains underexplored by many. As they teach larger and more diverse student cohorts, universities need to create and cultivate inclusive learning environments and approaches to improve access, equity and outcomes. This requires a whole-of-university approach that considers all aspects of student experience.
OPPORTUNITY AREA 3
UNIVERSITY STUDENT SURVEY
What is your preferred mode of delivery for the following common types of university learning ?
CLOSE X
Investing in the core enablers of high-quality teaching and learning
Many mechanisms that are put in place to support education detract from teaching quality by creating additional work for the academic workforce. Getting the basics right by improving systems, processes, policies, supports and assets can help to significantly enhance universities’ educational offers.
Universities can support teaching excellence by building better academic capability and releasing academic capacity for teaching, including through more flexible academic workload models that provide incentives and recognition for teaching excellence. Designing and managing physical assets with modern teaching and learning front of mind can ensure that the built environment facilitates meaningful learning experiences and outcomes. Rethinking the traditional academic calendar can better meet students’ diverse needs. Effective governance, leadership and ways of working can enhance the educational offer by harnessing the expertise of both academic and professional staff.
OPPORTUNITY AREA 4
Christine Samy
PRINCIPAL, NOUS GROUP
christine.samy@nousgroup.com
Ned Lis-Clarke
DIRECTOR, NOUS GROUP
ned.lisclarke@nousgroup.com
Zhengyuan Zhang
CONSULTANT, NOUS GROUP
zhengyuan.zhang@nousgroup.com
160
104
104
61
20
Emily White
data ENGINEER, NOUSCUBANE
emily.white@nouscubane.com
OUR HIGHER EDUCATION OFFER INCLUDES:
600+
180
projects delivered with higher education clients
PARTNERING WITH MORE THAN
higher education institutions
University and Faculty Strategy
ORGANISATIONAL AND SYSTEM PERFORMANCE
RESEARCH FOCUS AND PRODUCTIVITY
EDUCATIONAL DIRECTION
CHANGE THROUGH PEOPLE
STUDENT EXPERIENCE
Back to top
Learn more
We help universities to articulate and solve complex challenges.
Strategic direction
Digital strategy
Market positioning
New market opportunities
Partnerships and alliances
We develop the institutional infrastructure to deliver exceptional outcomes.
Functional excellence and service design
Economic impact assessment
System and process improvement
Campus and asset utilisation
Financial performance
We support universities to build a research focus and the capability to drive performance and recognition.
Research priorities
Talent strategy
Research performance
We partner with institutions to optimise and refine what is offered, to whom and how.
Domestic and international strategy
Course architecture
Pricing and discounting
Delivery models and modes
We provide expert guidance on transformation and develop people capability.
Major transformation
Workforce strategy
Leadership
Culture and change
Strengthened professional services
We help universities to craft an outstanding student experience that harnesses innovative ideas from across the globe.
Student experience
Student services
Student completion and outcomes
Alumni strategy
Download the Report
Download the Report
Download the Report
Download the Report