Dive Brief:
- Lasell College in Massachusetts has created a shared IT infrastructure to cover its 1,900 students, along with a continuing care retirement center and another small college, Pine Manor, creating savings and efficiencies for all involved.
- Campus Technology reports that the consortium shares one physical infrastructure at Lasell College that serves all three locations with a universal help desk, combined application development and support, and a single staff.
- Savings include $100,000 in the first 10 months from combining server and wireless infrastructure, and $25,000 from joint purchasing contracts.
Dive Insight:
In a competitive higher education market and a tough funding environment, finding savings and efficiencies is often critical to a small college’s survival. Lasell had shared IT services with the retirement community for almost a decade before reaching out to Pine Manor College to join the consortium. Pine Manor found immediate savings by joining a larger network because it could pay less per gigabit of bandwidth. Future savings seem guaranteed because of the continued opportunity to wield greater purchasing power for tech equipment and upgrades.