Higher Ed CMO Study: Budgets & Staffing
Marketing has become one of the most influential functions on campus, shaping enrollment, reputation, revenue, and institutional experience. Yet the structures designed to support that work have not evolved at the same pace. Budgets, staffing models, reporting lines, and decision authority have developed unevenly across institutions, creating a persistent gap between expectation and enablement.
While many CMOs now hold senior titles and sit at the leadership table, the systems around them remain fragmented. This chapter examines how misaligned investment, distributed teams, and disconnected funding models shape the reality of marketing work today, and why alignment at the structural level is now essential for marketing to operate as a true enterprise function.
