When survival becomes the strategy, it quietly changes how leaders lead. Efficiency replaces direction, caution replaces conviction, and, over time, organizations don't stabilize. They stall.
This growth masks stark regional disparities, with 80% of young people in Western Europe and Northern America enrolled in higher education, 59% in Latin America and the Caribbean, 37% in the Arab States region, 30% in South and West Asia, and 9% in sub-Saharan Africa.
Today, AI is no longer a concept to explore in higher education; it's a capability to implement. The technology has matured. So have the expectations. Institutions now face tighter budgets, increased public scrutiny around cost and outcomes, and the far-reaching impacts of FAFSA delays and demographic shifts. As noted in Liaison's new report, AI in […]
In the moments that define institutions—enrollment cliffs, program closures, funding crises—it is not governance structures or strategic plans that determine the outcome.
The efficiency tax is, at its core, a certainty tax—a gravitational pull toward what is measurable, predictable and defensible, even when the cost of that certainty is potential growth.
