When institutional decision-makers talk about technology costs, the conversation often focuses on the price tag. That’s because fees associated with licensing, maintenance, and upgrades are easy to quantify. But when legacy systems are examined more closely, hidden costs are brought to light—expenses that can hold institutions back from transforming into the agile organizations that students and staff now demand.
The impact that legacy technology has on institutions is huge. Yes, legacy systems can strain the budget, but on a deeper level, their impact stretches across campus. Legacy technology can quietly affect staff capacity, student experiences, data quality, security, and an institution’s ability to adapt in a rapidly changing landscape.
Let’s explore some of the hidden costs of legacy systems and their impact on higher education institutions.
Inefficient Processes and Workarounds
The way people work—or want to work—has changed, especially with the emergence of automation technologies. If staff are stuck leveraging outdated tools, however, tasks that should take minutes can take hours, require the use of multiple systems, cause data duplication errors, and more. Worse still, legacy solutions can encourage staff to create workarounds and take matters into their own hands.
Over time, these problems can compound into bigger, costlier challenges. Stretched teams will have even bigger workloads, errors and inconsistencies will crop up, and staff may burn out due to frustrations having to deal with outdated processes.
These costs associated with maintaining legacy technology may not show up in financial reports, but they will show up in morale, productivity, and turnover.
Fractured Experiences
Technology is a daily player in the lives of many students and staff. Given the prevalence and sheer volume of smart devices, it makes sense that students—and staff—would want the college experience to support similar engagements to which they have grown accustomed. So, what happens when institutions are leveraging legacy technology? Cracks begin to form.
Technology users today want mobile-friendly design, anytime/anywhere access, real-time updates, and personalization. Unfortunately, many campus systems require students and staff to use different portals, remember unique logins for different systems, and repeat information or processes through different platforms.
For students and staff, these disjointed experiences can lead to confusion, missed deadlines, and disengagement—especially for first-generation or non-traditional learners. For institutions, these fractured experiences can impact enrollment, retention, and staff satisfaction.
Less Informed Decision-Making
Poor data visibility, transparency, and accessibility are among the biggest challenges associated with legacy technology. When institutions are forced to manually update information across multiple systems, issues are bound to occur—and decision-making is often a victim.
Without a modern system and integrated data, staff can lose insight into valuable areas on campus, including advising, enrollment, student success, retention, finance, IT, and more. This can lead to impacted decision-making associated with managing curricula, identifying at-risk students, measuring performance in key programs, budgeting, and so much more.
To make up for not having integrated data, campus leaders will have to spend time building and reconciling reports or risk making decisions without the full picture.
Security Issues
Older systems can be troublesome to maintain. Over time, malicious parties discover and expose exploits that, if not patched or addressed, can lead to serious security risks for institutions that are responsible for safekeeping sensitive information. In many cases, legacy platforms simply can’t keep up with evolving regulations, accessibility standards, and modern cybersecurity threats.
Legacy systems can introduce many hidden—and costly—risks, including increased exposure to data breaches, audit challenges, and a greater dependency on individuals who have developed specialized knowledge of system capabilities. Even though a legacy platform may seem stable on the surface, there can be cracks and exposures underneath.
Opportunity Cost of Standing Still
While legacy technology can impact performance, experiences, visibility, and security, perhaps its biggest detriment is impeding innovation. The world of technology is rapidly evolving, and institutions must keep up for the sake of their students and employees. If they can’t, they risk being surpassed by competing schools or facing potentially existential challenges.
Digital transformation requires scalability, agility, and the willingness to change. If an institution is relying on outdated solutions or clinging to the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mantra, then uncertainty is its likely future. But in today’s competitive and resource-constrained environment, standing still can have dire consequences.
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