Your next student system investment should strengthen the student experience, not squeeze the budget available to deliver it.
For University vice-chancellors, finance directors, CIOs and registrars, the question should be:
“Will this investment genuinely release capacity for education, or commit us to another cycle of expensive complexity?”
The media coverage of Nottingham University strikes highlights the impact on students’ of disruption, job losses and programme closures, with UCU in part blaming system transformation cost overruns. We cannot draw a direct link between project overspend and staff redundancies, but Universities must ask tougher questions about cost.
Within a constrained budget, avoidable spending on technology leaves less money for other priorities because if the cost overruns of a student transformation implementation impacts the employment of staff this is clearly detrimental to the students.
Technology is essential. Excessive cost should not be accepted as inevitable.
A New Vision For Student Records Systems
At Future Horizons Education, this distinction shapes the development of SJMS-5, our cloud-native Student Journey Management System and the core of our wider higher-education software suite.
Our ambition is to deliver lower-cost systems that support the student journey while preserving resources for the people who deliver it. Designed by those with experience inside the sector, not by traditional suppliers.
The proposition is not simply lower cost. It is a different starting point:
1. Understand the work before specifying the technology.
2. Challenge duplicated functionality and unnecessary complexity.
3. Involve academic and professional-services colleagues in the design.
4. Make whole-life costs visible before committing.
5. Deliver in manageable stages and test whether the benefits materialise.
Alongside SJMS-5, two other key FHE tools support that approach:
The FHE System Design Toolkit helps institutions map processes, data and system connections, so investment starts with a clearer understanding of what needs to change and the FHE Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator helps institutions explore costs beyond the licence fee, using assumptions they can replace with their own figures. It is a starting point for a business case, not a savings guarantee.
If your institution is reviewing its student records platform or planning a transformation programme, we would welcome a conversation about your requirements, current costs and alternatives.
Explore the TCO Calculator:
Student Records Costs
Explore the FHE Student Journey Managament System
SJMS-5
Contact us for any other information or for a demo of any of our solutions
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