One of the toughest challenges facing presidents and CFOs is strategic financial planning. More and more, accreditors and governing boards expect to see a 3- to 5-year budget projection that is linked to the strategic plan. This is a challenge because: 

• revenue is highly dependent on enrollment that can vary tremendously from year to year;

• many key variables (like inflation) are outside of your control; and

• budget components interact in a complex way.

The 4-SIGHT Model is your solution. The customizable model uses your institutional data to generate a reliable and defensible 5-year budget projection that is a function of enrollment and retention. In addition, the unique interactive interface allows you to change the model assumptions to explore a range of possible future scenarios. Finally, revenue and expenses related to strategic initiatives can be isolated and tracked over time to demonstrate their effectiveness. The enrollment and budget projections appear in an easy-to-read Dashboard along with supporting data.

In today’s higher education market, institutions need to be forward-looking so that they can quickly pivot to adapt to changing conditions. For example, a university using the 4-SIGHT model determined that they would exceed their housing capacity in year 3 of their strategic plan. Knowing this, they were able to initiate construction of a new residence hall and complete it in time.

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We recognize the budget and staffing constraints at small to medium-sized institutions, so we purposefully designed a model with light data requirements. All of the data needed to customize the model are variables that are commonly collected and reported, which is not the case for most commercial financial models. Furthermore, there is no new software platform to install or integrate and the price of the model is highly affordable.

A final distinctive trademark of 4-SIGHT is its emphasis on visualization. College and university leaders often must convey key enrollment and financial metrics to boards, accreditors, and other stakeholders. 4-SIGHT produces an array of clear and customizable enrollment and financial graphics that facilitate your communication and planning.

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4-SIGHT works for higher education institutions of all sizes, public and private, for-profit or not-for-profit.