Tech Trends 2025: Can Technology Help Universities Avoid the Enrollment Cliff?

The long-predicted enrollment cliff — a feature of the birth dearth wherein fewer high school graduates are available to fill college dorms, lecture halls and laboratories — is very real. A spate of university closures and a downward trend in overall enrollment have intensified fears about the consequences of the enrollment cliff, and most colleges have been preparing for this inevitability over the 17 years since 2008.

It’s never too late, though, for universities to put their best foot forward to impress students, something they’ll likely have to keep doing until the gap between high school graduates and freshman college enrollees closes. One of the main ways universities have been preparing is through strategically investing in technology, including everything from infrastructure to high-performance computing and better classroom microphones.

As the pool of high school graduates continuing to shrink, here are four technologies we believe could make a difference in 2025.

1. Onboard Artificial Intelligence Now

Artificial intelligence has been a hot topic in higher education and technology circles for several years. The debut of ChatGPT in November 2022 led to the release (or repackaging) of a flurry of AI-enhanced products and spurred lofty proclamations about how AI could fix all that ails higher education.

Still, there are certainly ways artificial intelligence can support higher education’s enrollment goals, deliver better learning to students and take some of the heavy burden off university staffs that have shrunk along with declines in attendance.

At last year’s EDUCAUSE conference in San Antonio, David Seidl, vice president for IT and CIO at Miami University, summed up heightened interest in AI with a clever analogy and urged his colleagues across the industry to be deliberate about incorporating the technology.

“Everybody wants to sell you something, like an AI-enabled toaster. And not all of us need an AI-enabled toaster,” he said in October. “We want to think about where the investment in AI makes sense.”

Chatbots can answer student questions at all hours of the day and are valuable and relatively easy to implement, as long as it’s done securely. Beyond that, the best practice might be shifting your focus to the data AI consumes to ensure that it is ready for the day when AI can tackle bigger tasks.

WATCH BELOW: See how universities can implement some of the top IT technology in 2025.

2. Get Your Data in Order

Whether its on-premises or in the cloud, the massive amounts of data possessed by higher education institutions can make or break any AI initiative. The fact remains, however, that universities that don’t have well-organized, structured, clean data are going to create AI tools that only offer bad information.

Modern data platforms can help universities get organized, and strategic communication and collaboration can ensure that data is collected and governed effectively.

For data to make sense to AI, data must be a priority everywhere on campus. A data-driven institution must be exactly that and have a clear, top-down strategy for how data is collected and used, and how outputs based on that data are audited for accuracy.

RELATED: How can technology convince students of higher education’s value?

3. Learn What Your Students Need, Then Give It to Them

That clean data can, in turn, help universities understand what their students need to be successful. AI tutors have been around for years, and large language models will only make them smarter and more adaptable.

At a number of institutions around the country, data analytics tools that monitor student progress — inside learning management systems, through keycard building access tracking and within applications managed by the university — can deliver better student outcomes and retain students. This is one of the underdiscussed keys to avoiding the enrollment cliff.

Beyond data, universities also should be focused on what students want, and at least match what those students are used to in both their K–12 schools and at home. In short, the Wi-Fi at your college can’t be worse than what they were used to in high school, and the classroom better have the interactive whiteboards, flexible seating and other features that have come to define modern education.

4. Turn Learning Spaces Into Training Grounds

Universities should bear in mind what tools students will need to know how to use after they graduate.

That could mean welding machines and other industrial tools, such as those used at the College of Lake County, or it could mean design software such as Canva.

It also means preparing  students to use AI in the workforce, something that will become a core skill as AI continues to evolve. Special computing and virtual reality are also excellent training tools and can impress students visiting campus or showing an interest in enrolling.

Tools that combine a wow factor and future utility can turn enrollment trends around and push back the enrollment cliff for decades to come.