Be Bold, or Be Left Behind: Jim Lummus on Higher Education’s New Reality

“Higher ed doesn’t have a strategy problem. It has an execution problem,” says Jim Lummus, Executive Vice President at University Solutions. For Jim, that tension sits at the heart of almost every challenge facing universities today. “Universities can identify the problem. They can plan for it. But getting things done is so challenging,” he says. “The pace of change is so fast, and traditional processes don’t allow institutions to keep up with that pace.”

Jim has spent more than two decades helping U.S. universities navigate exactly those pressures, working closely with institutions trying to launch and scale online programs. That is also why many of Lummus’s ideas resonate so strongly with OES Learning Solutions’ Leading with S.C.A.L.E. framework. Rather than treating digital transformation as a technology initiative, S.C.A.L.E. positions it as an institutional operating model.

“I think I am a little bit different from others working in the higher education sector,” he says. “While many have made a career within academia and working as faculty members, I have spent the last 20 years doing business with universities to help them to enable their teams to deliver on their strategic goals more efficiently.”

That market-facing lens is precisely what makes his contribution so valuable. Jim understands the internal complexity of universities, but he also understands what happens outside the institution: how students compare options, how families assess risk, how employers think about outcomes, and why some competitors move when others hesitate.

“My perspective is a little more market-oriented,” he says.

In S.C.A.L.E. terms, Jim is speaking directly to the need for ‘Strategy First’: the discipline of aligning institutional mission with market positioning and program economics. For university leadership, this means acknowledging that academic quality alone is no longer enough. Quality must be visible, valuable, accessible, and delivered through models that meet learners where they are.

One of Jim’s most urgent concerns is the growing skepticism around the value of a degree. “Students are questioning the value of degrees,” he says. “Universities are struggling financially, and they unfortunately think the answer is to keep raising their prices, which is like a death spiral.”

It is a stark assessment, but one many leaders will recognize. Rising costs, student debt, demographic pressure, alternative credentials, and public scrutiny have all impacted the higher education value equation. Institutions can no longer assume that reputation will carry demand, or that students will settle for traditional models simply because they once had to.

For Jim, the answer is to modernize how that institutional mission reaches learners.

“If OES [Online Education Services] is helping people to modernize their product, to modernize their content, to make it more accessible, I think of that as a competitive advantage that helps institutions to actually have students in the courses,” he says. “It is one thing to create a great course, but if nobody signs up for it…”

That final point is crucial. In higher education, “product” can be an uncomfortable word. But for leadership teams responsible for institutional sustainability, it is also a necessary one. A program may be academically sound, but if it is poorly positioned or slow to reach the market, its impact is limited.

Jim also challenges institutions to think more rigorously about what “student-centered” really means. Universities often use the phrase as a statement of intent. Jim pushes it toward operating discipline.

In commercial environments, organizations constantly test, listen, refine, and adapt based on customer behavior. Higher education does not need to mimic business blindly, but it does need stronger mechanisms for understanding how learners experience its offerings, and for converting that insight into action.

That is why S.C.A.L.E.’s emphasis on ‘Learner-centric Quality’ matters. Student-centeredness cannot live in strategy documents alone. It has to be built into governance, design processes, faculty engagement, program development, market testing, and continuous improvement.

Jim is equally candid about the internal barriers that can slow progress. Universities are complex political environments. Priorities compete. Decision rights are sometimes unclear. Procurement processes are spooled. Bureaucracy can become a substitute for strategy.

“Sometimes private schools will say they have to do an RFP, and I will say: no, you do not. You are choosing to do an RFP. If you are choosing to do an RFP, that means you are really interested in comparison shopping. So, what are you comparing? What are you going to look at: vendor X versus vendor Y? If you tell me what outcomes or capabilities you actually care about, I can already tell you which vendors are likely to succeed or fail against those criteria.”

For university leadership, the lesson is not to avoid due process. It is to be intentional. If an institution is evaluating partners, programs, or investments, it needs clarity on the outcomes it is trying to achieve. Otherwise, process can create the illusion of progress while strategic momentum disappears.

That need for action is becoming more urgent as AI accelerates both the pace and the nature of change in the sector. Simply put, Jim sees AI as a test of institutional responsiveness. Universities are under pressure both to capitalize on new opportunities and to manage new risks. The challenge is that many are not built to move quickly enough to do either well.

In Jim’s view, the danger is not only that institutions make the wrong decision about AI. It is that they remain structurally unable to evaluate, pilot, govern, and scale emerging models at the speed required.

That is the logic behind S.C.A.L.E.’s focus on ‘Evergreen Innovation’: building digital education systems that can evolve over time, rather than treating every new technology wave as an emergency.

For Jim, the leadership imperative is clear: “It is about offering leadership on what it takes to be bold and succeed in this kind of market.”

Boldness, in this context, means having the courage to ask difficult questions about value, cost, access, differentiation, and speed. It means recognizing that alternative pathways like employer-backed credentials and shorter-form skills programs are, in fact, increasingly loud market signals that learners are rethinking so much that had been taken for granted in the past.

Universities still have extraordinary assets: faculty expertise, trusted credentials, deep communities, research strength, and missions that truly matter. But those assets need to be activated through models that are both educationally excellent and commercially realistic.

Listening to Jim, the future belongs to institutions that can connect mission with market discipline; bring faculty, partners, and leadership into genuine alignment; move high-quality programs from idea to launch with greater speed; and design learning experiences that students experience as worth the investment.

That is why his ideas resonate so strongly with S.C.A.L.E. The framework gives leaders a way to organize the work, so that ambition becomes execution, and digital transformation becomes a durable operating capability.

Jim’s final reflection captures the spirit of the conversation:

“I think the OES S.C.A.L.E. framework is a really interesting piece and I would encourage everyone in higher ed to read it. It definitely outlines principles that matter and gives you tactical and practical steps to move forward.”

Click here to download Leading with S.C.A.L.E.

OES partners with universities to design and deliver scalable, student-centered learning experiences. With over 14 years of experience, we bring deep expertise, proven infrastructure, and a collaborative approach to every engagement. Our end-to-end services span learning design, market analysis, media production, student support, and more—enabling institutions to deliver online programs that are academically rigorous and built to scale. We have a deep understanding of how people learn online. We know what engages learners and what keeps them motivated, and this shapes every solution we offer. By combining data insights, technology, and innovation, we create seamless teaching, learning, and student experiences that support learner success in a rapidly evolving world.