Anticipation

Higher Education Leadership Has to Level Up for What’s Coming

If the past year felt busy, you ain’t seen anything yet. 2026 is going to feel like hyperdrive. The signals across education are flashing like crazy. Enrollment shifts, AI adoption, workforce shortages, budget pressures, and student expectations are all coming at us at the same time. So, if campuses are going to navigate this next stretch, they will do so because their leaders stop managing and start leading at a fundamentally different level.

Let’s break it down and highlight the mindsets we will need to meet the challenges ahead.

1. The cliff is here.

The “enrollment cliff” is no longer a forecast. The number of traditional-age students peaked in 2025 and will now start a significant drop. This means that fewer 18 year olds will result in heavy competition, possibly more discounting, and even more pressure to deliver clear value.

As leaders, we simply cannot respond with a sense of nostalgia or denial. We need to be agile and reconsider our pipelines, partnerships, offerings, and our operating models. The time has come to let go of the past and start building what’s next.

2. AI is rapidly changing everything.

People like Ken Shelton, co-author of “The Promises and Perils of AI in Education,” say we are stuck in the talking points of AI. The theme around efficiency, automation, “cheating,” and productivity dominate. However, that’s just the surface. The real issue is capability. Students will graduate into an AI-enabled workforce, whether schools prepare them for it or not.

2026 will demand that we move beyond functional training and into true AI literacy around acumen, ethics, and bias awareness. This isn’t about teaching kids to use tools. It’s about equipping them to make judgments in a world where the tools will always evolve faster than the curriculum. Our institutions require leaders who see this clearly and push their systems toward responsible innovation, not reactive policy.

3. Students are questioning value.

Only about a third of Americans believe a four-year degree is worth the cost. Even the parents of K-12 students are equally skeptical, afraid their children aren’t being prepared for a world that is changing faster than the school day.

We can no longer assume that value is being delivered. We need to demonstrate it by becoming better listeners, better storytellers, and a lot more intentional about connecting learning to real-world outcomes. As we listened to our advisory board and conduct our interviews for EnvisionED, we have found that communities follow leaders who make education feel relevant, not institutional.

4. The workforce challenge is not easing up.

Teacher shortages, escalating burnout, and rising mental health needs are colliding. We are hearing that the old idea of asking people to do more with less does not work anymore. So, leadership in 2026 will require a more human approach. We will have to have clear priorities, better communication, and a renewed investment in culture.

Schools won’t fix their talent issues with slogans. They’ll fix them by building environments worth staying in.

5. Passive leadership won’t survive 2026.

The next chapter will reward leaders who are proactive, decisive, and grounded. The ones who ask harder questions, imagine new paths, and pull their people toward a future they can actually believe in.

Education doesn’t need caretakers, it needs builders. The kind of leaders who don’t wait for certainty, because they know certainty is the last thing 2026 will offer. If we meet this moment with that level of leadership, the future isn’t something to fear. It’s something to shape.

What an opportunity!