Why Higher Ed Needs a Single Platform for ITSM and ESM

The student experience has become a technology experience.

Technology is driving dramatic changes in the way universities operate. Compared to even just 10 years ago, the higher education landscape is almost unrecognizable. Forget lecture halls and library cards; it’s now online learning, mobile education apps and cloud services.

In 2025, over 50% of US college students were enrolled in at least one online course. 

Nearly 99% of college campuses report using technology to cut costs, and 49% are accelerating their investments in tech. Cloud adoption in universities has reached 70%. The fact is, technology rules the school. Consequently, any IT failures, from enrollment systems crashing to Wi-Fi outages in dorms, can disturb operations, impede the user experience, and erode trust in the institution.

Taking the Helpdesk to a Higher Level

ITSM maturity in higher education varies widely: some universities are at the cutting edge, deploying chatbots, unified service portals, and predictive analytics. Others are still in the process of migrating away from legacy ticketing systems. 

The diverse user base of students, faculty and staff has high service expectations, while IT departments themselves are often short on budget and talent.

Given the saturation and complexity of technologies across every aspect of college life, there is a strong trend toward Enterprise Service Management in higher ed. Uniting IT with other service units, such as HR, facilities, and student services, enables colleges to deliver a more seamless campus experience.

That’s why many institutions are now modernizing their ITSM platforms and expanding into ESM – treating service management as “the connective tissue” of campus operations rather than just an IT helpdesk function.

The Customer (Student) Comes First 

Gen Z are digital natives: 97% own smartphones, and over 90% regularly use laptops for coursework. 

Today’s students expect instant access to information and services. Whether IT support, course registration, or library help, university services must be as convenient and fast as the consumer apps that Gen Z use daily. 

ITSM platforms for higher education – such as IT Care Center – offer features that enhance the student experience, such as 24/7 self-service portals, knowledge bases, live chat support, and mobile apps for helpdesk requests. 

For example, a student who is having trouble logging into the knowledge management system at midnight will look for immediate self-help or chatbot assistance. Modern universities use AI-based virtual agents to handle these common Tier-1 support queries, including password resets, Wi-Fi setup, and more. The virtual chatbot is available 24/7, whenever needed. This not only improves student satisfaction but also deflects a significant portion of repetitive tickets from the human helpdesk.

Peak Efficiency throughout the Academic Calendar

The beginning of academic terms are a notoriously intense period for campus IT departments. These (often understaffed) teams face the perfect storm: an influx of new students onboarding to the system, each needing accounts, email setup, and device connectivity; last-minute course registration changes; financial aid queries; campus housing issues, and more – all

converging at once. This kind of pressure results in long lines at the IT helpdesk and overwhelmed phone support. Every possible crack in outdated IT systems and siloed support channels is exposed. Even the most well-prepared IT organizations can feel the strain.

Modernized universities address this by using ITSM tools that enable automated IT ticketing, templated solutions for common requests, and a flexible approach to scaling. Some also create seasonal self-service portals, such as an orientation support portal at the beginning of the new academic year, to streamline the influx of requests. Handling these spikes efficiently is critical, as those first impressions can shape students’ and parents’ perception of the institution’s competence and care for its students.

The Integrated Campus: Break Free of Siloed IT Services

Different campus departments typically have their own support systems – IT, facilities, housing, registrar, HR, and more – each in its own separate silo. This fragmentation often leads to a poor user experience. Students juggle multiple portals and logins (one for grades, another for dorm maintenance, another for tech support), and faculty or staff face inconsistent processes across departments.

A key trend in the higher education industry is the move toward unified service portals, where ITSM platforms double as enterprise service hubs. Now, whether a user needs tech help, payroll assistance, or facility repairs, they visit the same portal, and the request is routed behind the scenes to the right team. 

This ESM-centered approach significantly improves service consistency and transparency: users get updates and knowledge articles in one system, and leadership gains cross-department visibility into service performance. Students and staff expect “one-stop-shop” digital services, and integrated ITSM and ESM can provide it.

Low on Budget? Low on Staff? Go Low Code

Universities rarely have the budget flexibility of the corporate world. Many campus IT teams are being asked to do more with less – budgets are shrinking or flat, even as service demand rises each semester. 

According to a poll by EDUCAUSE, over 40% of IT leaders in the higher education industry expect a budget reduction in the 2025-2026 academic year. Nearly half of higher ed institutions are implementing a hiring freeze in IT departments as a result.

Those institutions that are hiring are facing another challenge: the shortage of IT workers in the job market. College IT managers may struggle even more to attract and retain talent when competing with higher-paying tech firms, leading to understaffed teams and reliance on a few experts. 

To cope, higher ed IT professionals are adopting no-code and low-code ITSM platforms, such as IT Care Center. A codeless ITSM tool empowers smaller teams by allowing quicker setup of new workflows or services without needing to rely on programmers. This is ideal when developers are in short supply.

Universities are also heavily leveraging automation –  for instance, automating account provisioning for new students, or integrating systems so that when a student updates their address in the registrar system, a workflow automatically updates it in the library and IT systems as well. Automating these kinds of routine, repetitive tasks frees up the precious time of campus IT staff and squeezes more from already-tight budgets. 

Automation not only improves efficiency but also ensures consistency, reducing human error across departments. This is crucial for maintaining compliance, such as data privacy policies, in a tightly-regulated industry.

Beyond the IT Department: ESM for Campus-wide Services

Higher education institutions today spend a significant portion of resources on non-educational operations, a phenomenon known as “administrative bloat”.

Everything from social services and facilities management to human resources, finance, and legal. 

Universities are increasingly adopting enterprise service management to improve service delivery in all administrative areas. For example, an ITSM-ESM platform like IT Care Center can handle:

• Facilities requests: i.e., a classroom projector is broken, so a staff member submits a ticket and the facilities support team responds via the system.
• HR processes: i.e., onboarding a new faculty staff member triggers IT to set up accounts, HR to handle payroll, and facilities to assign an office, all coordinated as subtasks of one onboarding request.
• Student services: i.e., scheduling guidance appointments or requesting tutoring services via one unified service portal.

This holistic, campus-wide approach to service management helps colleges improve responsiveness and break down bureaucratic hurdles, ultimately contributing to better student outcomes and operational efficiency. 

Is Your Campus Ready to Modernize?

While not all institutions are there yet, a majority have started the process of modernizing with ITSM and ESM. According to the AXELOS ITSM Benchmarking Report, 70% of organizations that can extend ITSM outside IT have begun doing so, although many are still only utilizing their platforms in a couple of departments beyond IT. The trajectory is clear: ESM will continue to expand in higher education as a strategy to deliver cohesive, user-friendly support across the entire university.

IT Care Center integrates ITSM and ESM in a single-license, low-code platform, powering IT departments in higher ed to offer a smoother, seamless student experience. Request a demo and discover how ITCC can elevate your IT performance on campus