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When AI Finds the Administrative Friction Higher Ed Leaders Miss

Release Date: 06/16/2026

When AI Finds the Administrative Friction Higher Ed Leaders Miss

Changing Higher Ed

Most AI conversations in higher education focus on the academic side. The administrative side gets less attention and is producing the bigger near-term financial wins for institutions willing to govern the rollout. In this episode of the , speaks with , about how AI is being applied across enrollment and advancement at institutions including Empire State University, Florida Southwestern State College, and Boise State University. Drawing on his career across Blackboard, Instructure, Kaltura, and now Gravyty, Beck walks through the specific case studies behind administrative AI adoption: a...

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AI adoption in higher education is moving faster than institutional change models were built to handle. Students are already using AI at high rates, while many institutions are still trying to decide where AI belongs, who should lead it, and how much change is required. In this episode of the , speaks with , serial entrepreneur and founder of , about why higher education’s traditional playbook will not work in the AI age. Drawing on her work with Fortune 500 companies and AI implementation, Barua explains why AI should be treated as institutional infrastructure, not an IT project. She...

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Civic preparedness in higher education can no longer be treated as an assumed byproduct of a college education. In this episode of the , speaks with , president of the , about how colleges and universities can rebuild the civic skills students need to navigate disagreement, evaluate credible information, and solve problems across difference. Drawing on his work with college presidents, faculty, employers, and Gen Z leaders, Vinnakota explains why higher education has drifted too far toward a private-good narrative focused almost entirely on jobs and individual outcomes. He makes the case that...

International Enrollment Strategy: Taking Higher Education to the World

Changing Higher Ed

International student enrollment in the United States reached record highs in 2024–2025, followed by a sharp and uneven decline heading into 2025–2026. While top-tier institutions continue to attract global talent, regional and private institutions are facing growing pressure as visa restrictions, geopolitical dynamics, and shifting perceptions of the U.S. reshape the enrollment landscape. In this episode of the , speaks with Executive Director of UC Berkeley’s International House, about how institutions must rethink international enrollment strategy in response to these structural...

Higher Ed Technology Change Management and Digital Transformation

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Most institutions offer experiential learning. Few deliver it. The gap between the claim and the outcome is structural, and closing it requires more than a better course design. In this episode of the , speaks with , a for-credit startup incubator operating at eight universities, about what it actually takes to produce the depth of learning that institutions advertise but rarely achieve. Drawing on his experience founding and selling a technology company to Walmart, leading the entrepreneur center at Brigham Young University, and building Sandbox across multiple institutions, Crittenden...

More Episodes

In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Justin Beck, CEO of Gravyty, about how AI is being applied across enrollment and advancement at institutions including Empire State University, Florida Southwestern State College, and Boise State University.

Drawing on his career across Blackboard, Instructure, Kaltura, and now Gravyty, Beck walks through the specific case studies behind administrative AI adoption: a reported 4% year-over-year retention gain at Empire State, 90% first-contact resolution of admissions inquiries at Florida Southwestern, and an 87% increase in donor volume at Boise State. He also explains where institutions go wrong, including bots that loop the way call-center bots loop and set-it-and-forget-it deployments that drift out of alignment within weeks.

This conversation is especially relevant for presidents, boards, and enrollment and advancement leaders building the business case for administrative AI and the governance to back it.

Topics Covered

Why administrative AI is producing measurable financial gains while most institutions still treat AI as an academic policy question
The retention math: how a 4% lift can translate into multi-million-dollar revenue protection at a mid-size institution
How AI sorts and triages carries admissions volume that hiring cannot keep up with
Why a poorly designed enrollment chatbot is worse than no chatbot at all
How AI surfaces structural fragmentation across student-facing offices
Advancement AI's real value: donor prioritization, not email generation
What good governance and human-review cadence actually look like in practice

Real-World Examples Discussed

Empire State University: a 25% engagement lift and a 4% year-over-year retention gain after deploying AI virtual assistants across roughly eight departments
Florida SouthWestern State College: 90% first-contact resolution of admissions inquiries and time to class registration cut in half
Boise State University: an 87% increase in donor volume, a 50% increase in donor interaction and response, and $635,679 raised through an AI-assisted advancement channel
A Missouri institution where an AI web crawler surfaced three different admissions deposit dates published on three active web pages
A New York institution where more than 40% of questions coming into the financial aid office had nothing to do with financial aid

Three Key Takeaways for Higher Education Leadership

Move quickly, with an acceptable use policy on the books and defined institutional outcomes the AI work is supposed to drive
Control what you can control while pulling stakeholders in, including the faculty committee model
Iterate often on a recurring governance cadence, because the technology is changing month by month

Institutions that do not use AI to improve administrative efficiency are incurring opportunity costs in every cycle.

Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/administrative-ai-in-higher-ed-finding-revenue-friction/

#AdministrativeAI #HigherEducation #HigherEducationPodcast

Topics Covered

Real-World Examples Discussed

Three Key Takeaways for Higher Education Leadership

TOPICS