The Evolution of Strategic Planning in Higher Education*

Colleges, universities, and systems need to respond quickly and strategically to the rapidly changing landscape in higher education.

• Demographic changes, including the changing racial and ethnic composition of students, the continuing decline of traditionally aged students in some regions of the United States, and the gender gap in educational attainment will alter the size and composition of future classes.
• Declining confidence in institutions of all types, from organized religion to higher education, has contributed to questions about the value and return on investment of a four-year degree.
• Artificial intelligence and future technological developments promise to transform both the educational process and the world of work after graduation.
• Significant taxpayer investment in higher education at both the state and federal levels, as well as the high amount of debt taken on by substantial numbers of students, place greater accountability demands on institutions and focus increased attention on career and earnings outcomes, rather than on a well-rounded education or preparation for active participation in a democratic society.

These forces of change intersect, interact, and accelerate, placing financial, ethical, educational, and existential pressures on institutions ill-equipped to navigate and adapt to change with agility and speed.

For governing boards, retreats offer valuable opportunities to step away from immediate, day-to-day concerns and think about their long-term strategic direction. There are examples of successful institutions and foundations that have modified their strategic-planning processes to be faster and more adaptive to the rapidly changing landscape in higher education, but these methodologies have taken decades to evolve. This blog post is intended to provide a brief overview of the history of these strategic-planning efforts, with links to some important resources that can help boards, presidents, and other higher education leaders navigate change through more effective strategic-planning retreats.

History of Strategic Planning

Much of the conceptual framework for strategic planning in higher education can be traced to George Keller’s seminal work on the topic, Academic Strategy: The Management Revolution in American Higher Education. Keller opens his book with these familiar words:

A specter is haunting higher education: the specter of decline and bankruptcy. Experts predict that between 10 percent and 30 percent of America’s 3,100 colleges and universities will close their doors or merge with other institutions by 1995. On many campuses the fear of imminent contraction or demise is almost palpable. (Keller 1983, 3)

Keller adapted strategic-planning models used by corporations for applications to U.S. colleges and universities. He advocated longer-term, proactive approaches to establishing long-term goals and objectives and tying those efforts to disciplined budget allocations and measurable, transparent reporting of progress made toward those goals and objectives.

Early strategic-planning efforts were largely driven by administrators, with limited engagement of internal campus or external stakeholders. Many of these plans were complex, of short duration, and tactical in nature with little reliance on data. They lacked accountability or follow-through, and were loosely tied to the annual budget process. Departments across campus lobbied for their units to be represented in the plan, leading to large, unwieldy, unfocused documents. Consequently, strategic plans often languished in file cabinets or were abandoned with the arrival of the next president. Stakeholders frequently expressed cynicism about planning processes, seeing them as bureaucratic exercises leading to minimal results.

Over the past 20 years, strategic planning in higher education has evolved to be more inclusive of and collaborative with key stakeholder groups, grounded in more systematic data analysis, and focused on a few, longer-term objectives. However, the relationships among the strategic plan, the annual budget cycle, and multi-year financial projections remain limited, with few institutions managing to effectively integrate these efforts into a coherent and interdependent process. Strategic plans at many institutions remain overly complex and all too often reflect the wish lists of stakeholders rather than being focused on achievable strategies that are likely to succeed. As a result, such documents rarely move the institution forward and contribute to stakeholder disengagement with planning efforts undertaken by successive presidents.

Modern Approaches

Paul Friga provides guidance on the modern-day approach in two recent pieces: “The Six-Million Dollar Man Strategy for Modern Higher Education—Better. Stronger. Faster.” and “Beyond the Agenda: Elevating Board Retreats to Shape University Strategy.”

Friga encourages efficient, inclusive, and collaborative planning discussions with key stakeholders, based on a framework of no more than three strategic priorities, with proposed objectives and activities under each priority. Objectives and activities should be focused on those that will have the greatest positive impact on the priority, have the greatest likelihood for success, and can be achieved in the shortest amount of time. Using this model, plans can be developed, tested with stakeholders, and finalized in three months. Concurrently, proposed plans are correlated with and integrated into the annual budget cycle and multi-year financial projections. This comprehensive process incorporates regular feedback loops, key performance indictors with dashboards, ongoing reporting to stakeholders, and accountability with trustees.

Strategic Board Retreats

Rarely can boards delve into institutional strategy with any depth during regular committee and board business meetings.

The setting of a board retreat offers that precious opportunity to set aside the tyranny of the immediate so the trustees can engage in the fundamental conversations about who they are as an institution, what they value most, what sets them apart from the competition, and where they need to go in the next three, or five, or ten years to fulfill their mission and realize their most desired future.

Some boards time these conversations to coincide with a change in the presidency, as though institutional strategy and direction are the president’s purview and need to change each time a new president is selected. Other boards have concluded that it is the board that owns the mission, vision, and strategic direction; therefore, ongoing conversations at the board level are necessary before recruiting a president and after the president is in office.

Regardless of trustees’ perspectives, periodic board retreats focused on strategic direction are vital for institutions that intend to survive and thrive in this turbulent era.

*This post is adapted from Mark Heckler, “Setting Strategic Direction in Today’s Higher Education Environment: The Board Retreat,” in A Guide to Strategic Board Retreats in Higher Education, ed. R. Barbara Gitenstein (Washington, D.C.: AGB, 2025), 9-26.

Mark Heckler is an AGB consultant, president emeritus of Valparaiso University, and a trustee at Elizabethtown College (PA).