2025 may be a year of significant change for the higher education community. This community, which includes colleges, universities, accreditors, and nonprofits focused on higher education, may see significant shifts in higher education policies. Some of the proposed changes include eliminating the Department of Education and restructuring the accreditation system. Other proposals focus on affordability, such as creating a federally supported tuition-free university, along with new policies related to institutions’ endowments and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Because it is unclear whether and how fast these changes will be implemented, the higher education community is facing a great deal of uncertainty that may present challenges but could also offer opportunities for innovation. Scenario planning is a tool that can help the higher education community strengthen resiliency and navigate this uncertainty.
Traditional strategic planning often results in a five-year plan that assumes stable conditions. While useful in predictable times, these plans are not helpful when facing high levels of uncertainty. The level of unpredictability facing the higher education community, whether from regulatory shifts, economic pressures, or emerging trends in areas such as technology, requires a different approach. Although there has been some movement away from traditional strategic planning, the five-year plan is still widely used. What is needed now is a planning approach that enhances strategic agility by articulating, exploring, and learning from alternative futures. Scenario planning provides this capability.
Scenario planning supports strategic agility by helping organizations consider multiple possibilities of the future, adapt to change, and make better decisions in uncertain times. While scenario planning has been used in some parts of higher education, it does not appear to be widely used. Scenarios typically focus on long-term futures, but they can also be highly effective when organizations face disruptions or potentially rapid changes. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, institutions had to make quick decisions about online learning, campus closures, and shifting student needs. These are all areas where short-term scenario planning could have provided valuable insights.
Scenarios are stories about the future that explore what could happen in a way that is coherent, plausible, and consistent. They are not predictions but are tools for imagining how the future might unfold if it diverges from expectations. Scenarios are shaped by considering drivers of change, factors identified through scanning for early signals of change or emerging trends. Scanning typically examines a wide range of areas using frameworks like STEEPLE, which looks at social, technological, economic, environmental, political, legal, and ethical factors. Technological factors might include the emergence of a new platform that significantly expands AI performance of administrative tasks, while environmental factors might include sustainability policies that could require institutions to invest in green campuses or carbon-neutral operations. Scanning broadly using a framework such as STEEPLE avoids overlooking factors that may impact one’s organization or sector but do not at first seem relevant. The most uncertain and impactful drivers of change uncovered during scanning become the foundation for creating meaningful scenarios.
The higher education community should consider the proposed policy changes as key uncertainties for scenario development. While these changes are central, they should be examined alongside other factors identified using the STEEPLE framework that may impact higher education. For instance, economic policies related to inflation, environmental initiatives affecting campus sustainability, and technological advances that impact education could all have significant implications. One of the most useful approaches for scenario planning is the 2×2 Matrix. It employs the two most critical uncertainties by plotting their extremes on a grid. This creates four different scenarios, which provide four potential futures to explore. For the higher education community, this method can help unpack how key uncertainties, such as changes in accreditation or the creation of a free federal institution, might interact and shape the future.
What’s next after creating scenarios? Scenario planning helps you understand the potential impact of change and how your organization’s strategies might hold up in different futures. For instance, one axis of a 2×2 Matrix could explore regulatory changes to accreditation, ranging from minimal to extensive. Another axis might focus on the speed of technological advances in generative AI, from slow to rapid. This combination creates four distinct scenarios, each reflecting a different set of possibilities.
Mapping uncertainties using a 2×2 Matrix also highlights how they might interact. Imagine a 2×2 Matrix where one axis measures the extent of regulatory changes related to accreditation (from minimal to extensive) and the other represents the level of improvement in the capabilities of AI-driven educational tools (from slow to rapid). This would create four scenarios: (1) minimal changes to accreditation with a slow AI improvement, (2) minimal changes to accreditation with a rapid AI improvement, (3) extensive changes to accreditation with a slow AI improvement, and (4) extensive changes to accreditation with a rapid AI improvement. Each scenario offers unique challenges and opportunities to consider. By examining these scenarios, the higher education community can identify changes needed in their current strategies and explore opportunities that come with the changes.
Although there is significant uncertainty facing the higher education community, it does not have to result in paralysis. Scenario planning offers a way to anticipate and adapt by exploring multiple possible futures. This strengthens resilience and offers opportunities to thrive in uncertainty.
The views in this article are those of the author and not the views of the United States Military Academy, United States Army, or United States Department of Defense.