When COVID relief funds poured into higher education, many institutions seized the opportunity to upgrade their AV infrastructure. Entire campuses were retrofitted for hybrid learning almost overnight. But as the panelists on AVNation’s AVWeek 733 reminded us, one-time higher education AV funding creates as many long-term questions as it solves.
“Occasionally higher education will get what I call a big pot of money,” said host Tim Albright. “You can do 10 new rooms, maybe a lecture hall. But in five to seven years, when the refresh cycle comes along, that big pot is gone. How do you manage that?”
The Sustainability Challenge
For Ryan Gray, from Yavapai College, the challenge has no neat answer. “It really is different from place to place, and we live at the mercy of the values of the institution,” he explained. Some universities view a grant or gift through a sustainability lens, tying it to longer-term upkeep. Others take a more immediate approach: you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
The tension between urgency and sustainability defines much of higher education AV funding. Gray noted that the institutions who fare better often “tie AV upgrades into facilities management or other standards that are already valued across campus. A heat pump may have a 25-year lifespan, AV equipment only five to seven, but if you can hitch your technology planning to those existing processes, you stand a better chance.”
To listen to the full AVWeek episode, go here
When Standards Save Budgets
Chris Kelly, of Creighton University, illustrated the stakes with a story from his campus. “We’ve got this big fancy video wall. Someone tossed out a bunch of money, but now one of the screens is going bad. They don’t make the screens anymore, it’s not under warranty, and we’ve got a major event coming up. There’s no pot of money sitting there to replace it.”
His team’s stopgap solution: moving displays around to hide the failing unit. But the deeper lesson was clear. “If we’d standardized on displays we already use across campus, we’d have had spares on hand. Standardization gives you breathing room when the funding cycle runs dry.”
Even in the best-funded environments, refresh cycles pile up. “The more buildings you get, the more five- and seven-year cycles overlap,” Kelly said. “Without budgets growing at the same pace, something eventually has to give.”
Planning for Day 1,000, Not Day One
The panelists agreed that while one-time dollars are tempting, higher ed decision-makers must resist the urge to build beyond their ability to refresh. Gray summed it up bluntly: “If there were a great answer, we’d all have it solved. The best thing we can do is anchor AV to processes the institution already understands and plan for day 1,000, not just day one.”
When it comes to higher education AV funding, institutions should resist the temptation to let one-time grants dictate their standards. Instead, new technology investments should be aligned with existing campus refresh policies to ensure consistency and long-term viability. Standardization plays a crucial role in this process, as relying on common equipment makes it easier and far more cost-effective to replace or repair systems when budgets tighten. Ultimately, one-time funding is best applied to scalable, repeatable solutions that can support sustainability over the long term, rather than flashy, bespoke projects that are difficult to maintain once the initial money runs out.
