A 20-minute private interview.
Adaptive to your industry and your answers. It asks for proof, not opinion, because opinion is what every AI assessment already has.
Higher Education / Executive Diagnostic
Before you spend on AI.
Know where it pays across the institution and where it would break first, with governance built in.
An open letter to CEOs who are about to spend on AI. Read the letter →
01 / What you walk away with
Five things a leadership team needs before spending on AI.
Everyone promises where AI pays. Nobody tells you where it will fail.
Where AI will pay. The single operating constraint that limits the institution most, and the two or three levers around it where AI creates leverage. Not a list of tools.
What to prioritize. Ranked, with the reason for the rank.
What not to automate yet. The parts of the operation that are not structurally ready, and what has to be true first. This is the part most AI assessments skip, and the part that saves the most money.
What it is worth. A conservative dollar figure for each lever, built from a number you stated against a named benchmark. If you cannot state the number, the report says so instead of inventing one.
What to do in the next 90 days. A 30/60/90 leadership roadmap, and Session 1 on Zoom to walk it with you, included.
02 / How it works
A board-level report.
Web and PDF. Readiness score, constraint map, lever-by-lever economics, 90-day roadmap. Every dollar shows its source.
Session 1, on Zoom, included.
We walk the findings together. If the opportunity is real, the 90-Day Advisory works the plan with you. If it is not, you have the read you needed and you paid $1,995 for it.
03 / Every dollar has a source
Most AI assessments print a number to impress you. This one refuses to.
Each dollar figure in the report is one of your stated numbers, multiplied against a benchmark we name, at a conservative capture rate we show. Where you cannot state the number, the report prints a visibility finding instead of a dollar. The figure is smaller than a consultant would show you. It is also one you can defend to a board, a cabinet, or an auditor.
Prepared for / Higher Education / Confidential
The leadership team sees enrollment totals and term-end summaries, but cannot isolate where the first student or the first tuition dollar is lost.
Enrollment health is being interpreted through annual totals instead of measurable monthly operating readiness.
No single operating view proves whether net tuition revenue is leaking through retention, yield, summer melt, aid completion, or instructional cost.
On Monday morning, compare retention flags, yield by admit pool, aid-file completion, section fill, donor retention, and the accountable lead for each.
04 / What the interview is like
Which part of the student lifecycle — retention, yield, aid completion, instructional cost, workforce stability, or advancement — is creating the most pressure for your leadership team right now?
“Retention is holding, but yield and aid completion still feel unpredictable year to year.”
“Is the constraint retention, yield, summer melt, aid-file completion, instructional cost, or donor retention? What report would prove that by Monday morning?”
Describe the institution: total enrollment, governance structure (system campus, independent board), the shape of your leadership team, and the pressure that is hardest to move right now.
Public four-year, one campus in a state system. Cabinet of seven. The pressure that is hardest to move is retention, because by the time we see it, the cohort is gone.
Walk me through how retention works as an operating number here: who owns it, how often the leadership team sees it, and at what moment you find out a first-year student is not coming back.
Institutional research reports it annually after census. The provost sees it then. We usually learn a first-year student is not returning when they do not register for spring.
How large is your entering first-time full-time cohort this fall?
I have the number from the census file. Let me confirm it before I state it.
Use what you can state. Where a number is missing, the report says so instead of inventing one.
The interview does in 20 minutes what a week of discovery would take.
It asks for proof, not opinion, because opinion is what every AI assessment already has.
05 / The report
Twenty-four sections, built from your interview.
Each figure comes from a number you stated, against a benchmark we name. Where you could not state one, the report says so.
- 01Executive Snapshotfrom your stated numbers
- 02Board memofrom your stated numbers
- 03Opening Verdict
- 04Board-Level Thesis
- 05Readiness Score and Revenue Opportunityfrom your stated numbers
- 06Money Movement Map
- 07Five Issues Shaping the Revenue Opportunity
- 08Top Constraint Analysis
- 09Metric Deep Diveswhere a number was missing
- 10How Each Bottleneck Works Inside the Operation
- 11Executive Signal Layer
- 12Strategic Judgment Layer
- 13Vertical Operating Context
- 14Evidence Register
- 15Priority and Risk Map
- 16Scenario Modeler: Adjust Assumptions to Estimate Recoverable Annual Upsidefrom your stated numbers
- 17Role and Workflow Impact
- 18Change Management
- 19Turn Diagnosis Into Motionfrom your stated numbers
- 20Readiness, in your words
- 21Where it pays, and where it would breakwhere a number was missing
- 22Monday morning
- 2330 / 60 / 90 Roadmap
- 24Executive Diagnostic vs. Operational Diagnostic
- 25Methodology and Confidence Notes
Board memoSection 02
If comparable institutions make retention, yield, aid completion, and net-revenue signals monthly operating numbers while this institution reads them annually, the gap compounds in the exact figures the board already quotes.
Institutional intelligence trapped in annual cycles and office seams
The risk is that the leadership team sets discount, schedule, and program decisions from last year's reported figures while this year's movement stays invisible.
11 critical visibility gaps
Stand up a monthly cohort retention view from the student information system with a named accountable lead.
Monday morningVerify
- Enrollment Funnel and Aid Visibility
- Fewer aid-incomplete students at census, melt tracked weekly through summer, and a named lead per funnel stage.
- Net Revenue and Cost Visibility
- Net tuition revenue per student quotable by the leadership team, under-filled sections counted each term, and credit efficiency tracked at completion.
- Advancement and Data Readiness
- Year-over-year donor retention tracked against a peer benchmark, and leadership-team numbers produced from source systems without manual rebuilds.
- Student Lifecycle Visibility
- Cohort retention movement visible monthly, early alerts worked by named leads, and second-fall registration tracked before summer.
- Workforce Stability Visibility
- All-separations turnover tracked quarterly against the institution's own peer set, with time-to-fill and coverage cost visible.
Monday morningReview
- Retention movement is discovered at census, after the recoverable moment.
- Aid-incomplete students sit in an unowned queue over the summer.
- Net tuition revenue per student and section economics only appear in the year-end close.
06 / Diagnostic ladder
Two ways in.
Start with the diagnostic and decide after Session 1. Or start the Advisory now; the diagnostic is included.
Higher Education Executive Diagnostic
A private adaptive interview, readiness score, opportunity model, operating constraint map, 90-day path, and executive report.
$1,995 One-time Executive DiagnosticCredited in full toward the 90-Day Advisory within 30 days
- Private executive interview
- Higher Education readiness score
- Net tuition revenue opportunity model
- Operating constraint map
- 90-day path and executive report
- Report walkthrough on Zoom: Session 1 of the Advisory, included
90-Day Advisory
The diagnostic, then six working sessions over 90 days with the person who built it.
$14,950 Founding rate: $8,950 for the first five institutions or through 31 Dec 2026, whichever comes first. The diagnostic is included.- The Executive Diagnostic, run the moment you start
- Session 1: the report walkthrough on Zoom, with the people responsible for the top levers
- A written 90-day operating plan after Session 2
- Sessions 2 to 6: one lever per session, working sessions, not reviews
- A direct line between sessions, reply inside two working days
- Re-scored at day 90: a before-and-after report and an updated board memo
- A tool shortlist per lever from the AI Lens, no vendor affiliation
- Founding cohort: a named case study and one reference call in exchange
07 / The questions executives actually ask
One number you stated, one benchmark we name, one capture rate we show. All three are printed next to the figure. If you cannot state the number, there is no figure.
No. It is an adaptive interview that asks for evidence. It changes based on what you say.
No. Twenty minutes and your own knowledge of the institution.
You. Your answers generate your report and are not used to train public AI models.
Then the report says so, names what has to change first, and you have saved yourself from buying tools that would not have paid.
Session 1 on Zoom, included. Then, if the opportunity is real, the 90-Day Advisory. If not, you are done and you have the read.
About 20 minutes. Most people finish in one sitting.