The Hidden Costs of Fragmented Legacy Systems

After the staff of Advisor AI interviewed over 200 campuses about their student retention, career services, and advising systems, as well as related student outcomes from 2022 to 2024, most institutions cited the following:

• “We spent 6 months onboarding and implementing system ‘X’. One of my advisors shared that they were expected to learn the skills of a developer to use the tool effectively.” - Academic Advising Director, Community College
• “We spent 2 years implementing and training teams on the system we purchased, and only 5% of our team used it. In addition, faculty often don’t want to use these systems due to the limited value to them.” - Career Services, Executive Director at 4-Year Public University
• “We have had to hire three developers ($200K+) to maintain our current advising systems, create actionable reports, and integrate data flow across disparate systems” - VP of IT, Flagship R1 University
• “We spent more than $2M+ annually to launch the student success system - yet no advisor wanted to use it. We removed the advising CRM in year 3” - Dean, Private R1 University

Let’s break down the typical costs and types of student support systems:

Some essential systems that campuses cite include career exploration, resume management, advising CRM, appointment scheduling, student outreach tools, note-taking, case management, peer mentoring, sentiment analytics, early alert systems, career services CRM, degree and course planning, chatbots for student engagement, and more. 

When combined, these options result in significant licensing fees, ongoing maintenance costs, extended implementation timelines, and extensive training programs. When teams with student-to-advisor ratios ranging from 500:1 to 3000:1 strive to engage more students, they encounter limitations due to resource constraints or an inability to provide high-quality, personalized, and easy-to-use tools.

One Estimate of Costs for Multiple Student Success Systems

For an institution serving 10,000 students, the total cost of ownership is:

1. Major Exploration & Career Assessments: $20,000+

2. Career Readiness & Resume Management: $30,000+

3. University-Specific Student Success Chatbot: $100,000+

4. Advising CRM (Case Management, Note Taking, Appointment Scheduling, Outreach, Early Alert): $150,000+

5. Resources for Data Implementation & Integration (1–2 IT resources): $100,000+

6. Onboarding & Training Expenses (Often requires 4+ weeks of training and data entry for effective utilization by a team of 20–25 advisors): $100,000+

Total Annual Expenses: $500,000+ (Common terms are 3 years; estimated cost is $1.5 M+ for supporting critical team operations)

Industry Insights

“I’ve been involved in implementing software systems at colleges and universities, and several themes are common.  Implementing new software systems across a campus is a time-intensive process involving multiple departments and individuals. While the software may be installed quickly, achieving a successful user experience requires significant time and resources to train faculty,  staff, and the IT team adequately. This can entail hours and days of training sessions, workshops, and one-on-one support. Although every hour dedicated to training saves days of troubleshooting later, the total hours can accumulate, impacting staff workloads. Furthermore, having knowledgeable IT staff with enough time and experience to learn the new software system and support implementation and training is crucial for a successful rollout. Too often, in my experience, I have observed the complete opposite: hours of faculty and staff training combined with insufficient IT training and time result in users not fully utilizing the software's capabilities.” 

- Michael Griffin brings over 25 years of experience in higher education administration, spanning admissions, enrollment, retention, and financial aid

When I was a Dean for Student Learning & Engagement at Baylor University, we were trying to increase collaboration among all the departments that focused on student success. We soon realized that each unit had purchased its own software designed solely for its functional area. Academic advisors, career advisors, residence life, faculty, campus recreation, student organizations, student conduct, financial aid, and many others were operating in operational silos and failing to communicate with each other. Unfortunately, few, if any, of their chosen products could “talk to” the overarching SIS (Student Information System) and thus effectively become part of the comprehensive student success system we were designing. 

- Dr. Jeff Doyle, university effectiveness and student success leader at 10 colleges over the past 33 years. 

The Advisor AI Advantage: End-To-End, Easy To Use, Integrated Support

Advisor AI offers an end-to-end, easy-to-use advising platform for prospective students, enrolled students, admissions counselors, academic and faculty advisors, and career services staff to collaborate and engage meaningfully.

The one-stop-shop system removes the complexity of using and implementing multiple stand-alone advising and career services tools, allowing institutions to lower operational costs and transform program effectiveness significantly.

Advisor AI provides a tiered pricing structure to guarantee accessibility for institutions and departments of various sizes. With no additional setup or maintenance costs and minimal user training, we enable institutions to optimize their operational costs while equipping teams to concentrate on strategic initiatives that enhance the student experience and prepare all learners to adapt to the evolving demands of today's workforce.

End-to-End Support With Advisor AI

1. Major & Career Assessments: Included (customized to your data)

2. Career Readiness & Resume Management: Included (with AI-powered insights)

3. University-Specific Student Success Chatbot: Included (with ethical AI guardrails)

4. Advising CRM (Case Management, Note Taking, Appointment Scheduling, Outreach, Alerts): Included (with intuitive, research-backed advising workflows)

5. Data Implementation & Integration: 4–5 hours only, 4-week implementation

6. Onboarding & Training Expenses: 5–10 minutes of product training required, drive a 2X increase in student satisfaction within one term

Total Annual Expenses: $80,000+ *

(*~80% lower cost as compared with legacy tools, driven by AI-powered advising workflows, pre-packaged admin reports, automated data integration, simple to use interface, and automated student engagement insights)

Why Advisor AI?

“There are so many great features of Advisor AI. Students can get answers instantly from the interactive advising assistant, saving time for them and the advisors. It's intuitive, fun and easy to use for students and requires little training for advisors. But my favorite feature is that it incorporates career exploration and readiness, helping the student, advisor and career services team make sure milestones are being accomplished in a timely manner and the student is better prepared for a successful career after graduation.” Alan Beaudrie, 25+ years of experience as an academic advisor at Arizona State U. and U. of Arizona 

“Advisor AI is a huge help for students and career advisors alike. It not only provides extremely helpful and reliable recommendations in minutes, but it also saves so much time in advising meetings! The student and advisor have quality information at their fingertips that drives meaningful discussions. The Advisor AI platform eliminates the guessing game and delivers fast results.” - 20+ years of career services and recruiting experiences, Kelly Deily

“Advisor AI has significantly transformed the experience for both advisors and students. Its intuitive design and comprehensive features facilitate effortless tracking of student progress, leading to more efficient and meaningful interactions. This, in turn, enhances the advisor-student relationship.” Department Chair, Kutztown University, Dr. Soojin Kim

The Next Generation of Student Success Is Here.

In today’s competitive higher education environment, institutions require solutions that yield measurable outcomes while being user-friendly and cost-effective. Advisor AI is revolutionizing how higher education programs approach student success. It shows that effective technology can help teams enhance their impact in a meaningful, strategic, and cost-effective manner - and drive significant success within one semester, not years. 

Discover how programs nationwide are transforming student success and career development initiatives through human-centric AI.