There is a movement underfoot towards mobile technologies on campuses across the country, but will that solve the problem of rising cost and under-performing outcomes?

Insiders know that school technology tends to lag behind corporate adaptation by 18-24 months, thus we are just starting to see the proliferation of mobile, cloud-based technologies hit college campuses. While this adaptation is a significant shift away from older, localized systems, there remains an underlying set of issue that need to be addressed and resolved in order for schools to better serve their constituency on and off campus.

Most universities and colleges I have encountered over the years have a number of co-curricular groups on campus including career planning, athletics, newspapers, clubs, organizations and others, most with no centralized way in which to communicate and interact with the students they serve other than email. In addition, most have their own system, leaving the student to figure out how to juggle and manage the many masters they serve while at college. This segregation of efforts, or silo’ed approach, leads to tremendous fatigue on the part of the student trying to keep up with all the demands that besiege their time. So not only are they weighed down by the cost, but also by the lack of organization within the school itself where it concerns many of the co-curricular programs they engage with.

But positive changes are afoot. Take for example Dartmouth College. We have been working with the Professional Development team for the past year on a mobile initiative for their undergrads. While working with the excellent team there, we have been introduced to may other leaders across the campus, and our experience is that they have all been extremely receptive to new ideas and technologies that will allow them to create better engagement, breaking down the barriers that have grown over time between departments on campus. Dartmouth’s Peak Performance Program for varsity athletes, which strives to help students achieve the highest levels of physical, intellectual and personal growth while at the school, recently signed up forSportsBoard, which provides mobile player assessments. They are also ready to leverage the power of CareerPath Mobile, which is already in use at Dartmouth, providing a straightforward engagement and communications toolset that will allow Peak Performance to outline career planning milestones, tasks and events for individual or groups of students.

A sports program leveraging a career planning toolset you say? The team at Peak Performance saw the value of not only what the program has to offer, but by integrating with career services they will be providing students one platform for communication, helping to eliminate frustration and cutting back on program management costs. This shift towards both mobile and sensible integration of services is a key driver that will allow colleges to keep costs in check and optimize performance metrics, benefiting both students and the school.

They are not the only ones – schools are quickly catching on to the fact that they must evolve and adapt or run the risk of becoming obsolete. The rise of the for-profit educational model, which must innovate in order to remain financially viable, offers convenient, low cost accredited education that hundreds of thousands of people are taking advantage of. This access has put increased pressure on the traditional school model to keep up with the programs and infrastructure, all while trying to keep costs down.

Consolidating resources, building shared services, and eliminating duplication of efforts are some of the ways in which schools should be looking to reduce cost and increase effectiveness of their programs. Students today don’t necessarily need more — they need streamlined and efficient help. Mobile optimized tools that organize and help them manage their co-curricular lives are the order of the day — and the rise of entrepreneurs willing to explore the possibilities along with our educational institutions will help give rise to new and more productive models for learning.