SCUP

Competing Priorities

Prepare students for a career. Develop the whole person. Complete cutting-edge research. Steward the institution’s financial health. Higher education institutions often find themselves balancing competing priorities. Sometimes hard choices need to be made; sometimes there’s a third way.

What’s the best way for your university to deal with competing priorities? You won’t know without building relationships, aligning resources, and looking to the future. You won’t know without integrated planning.

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PLANNING FOR HIGHER EDUCATION JOURNAL
The Hardest Part of Integrated Planning

Setting priorities often includes one of the hardest decisions a college or university must make: determining what you will stop doing. This article looks at higher education’s tendency to avoid these hard decisions and offers some tips you can use in your next planning process.

Build Your Culture of Integrated Planning Through Hands-On Learning

Planning Institute Workshop Series
SCUP’s PI workshop series will help you and your team no matter where you are in the planning process. Learn more about the PI.

Integrated Planning Coaching
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Related Learning Resources

Planning for Higher Education Journal

The Hardest Part of Integrated Planning

 If priority setting is done properly, it necessarily means that choices are made to do some things and not do other things.
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Transform the Program Strategy, Transform the College

 An effective program strategy improves both student access and success while helping the college be more nimble in meeting emerging labor market needs.
Report

Succeeding at Planning Survey Report

 SCUP partnered with the Baker Strategy Group in 2015 to conduct a study with more than 2,200 leaders who plan at colleges and universities. Several themes emerged around planning challenges and how to respond, which are explored in this report.
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Reduce Curriculum Costs While Increasing Student Enrollment

 Results of the study supplied evidence needed to support tough institutional decisions. The 13 Kentucky colleges and universities that participated in the research now have critically important data to use in making choices about how they best serve their students, maximize scarce resources, and sustain financial stability.
SEE ALL RELATED RESOURCES

Conferences, Courses, and Workshops of Interest

Community Conversation

Community Conversation: Peer Insights on Trends and Planning for What’s Next

 September 26, 2025
Online | 2:00 - 3:00 PM Eastern
Workshop

Planning Institute: Foundations

 October 20, 2025 - October 21, 2025
Online | 11:00–5:00 PM Eastern
Workshop

Academic Planning Workshop

 November 4, 2025 - November 5, 2025
Online | 11:00–5:00 PM Eastern
Workshop

Budgeting with Purpose: Aligning Financial Resources to Support Goals

 November 10, 2025 - November 14, 2025
Online | 1:00–3:00 PM Eastern
SEE ALL RELATED CONFERENCES AND PROGRAMS
RELATED PLANNING TYPES
Strategic PlanningAcademic PlanningResource PlanningCampus PlanningDiversity, Equity, and Inclusion PlanningStrategic Enrollment Management PlanningInformation Technology PlanningInstitutional Effectiveness PlanningStudent Affairs PlanningSustainability Planning
Have content you’d like to share?
Contact:
Sadie Wutka
Director, Content Development
sadie.wutka@scup.org
734.669.3293