Analytics and a Crossroads for Higher Education

Thanks to changes in demographics, economics, technology and other areas, higher education is at a crossroads. Its future promises to be turbulent and very different from its present. Analytics—whether in its application to individuals, business practices, or institutions—is helping shape that future. And yet the future of analytics in higher education is itself uncertain. How will our institutions productively harness the promise of analytics? What are the needed baseline investments, and how prepared are institutions to make them? What pitfalls lie ahead? And what implications does the analytics revolution have for the profession of information technology and its relationship to business operations and executive functions in higher education?