Modern higher education leaders are more conscious of expenditures than ever. With enrollment and budget challenges persisting at many institutions, every expenditure must demonstrate justification and impact. In that environment, campus events calendars become logistical tools that can impact enrollment outcomes—but only with a solid ROI justification.
Getting to that point is not always easy. Join us as we unpack the true costs of maintaining a university event calendar, the measurable value that the right platform can deliver, and how to model the ROI of campus event calendars to present to leadership.
Why ROI Matters for Campus Events Calendars
An increased number of institutions are operating under Responsibility Center Management (RCM) models, in which every investment must be linked with measurable outcomes. Rather than simply signing up for a software package and hoping for the best, it means teams must ensure each platform helps to meet institutional goals.
Your campus events calendar can become a crucial logistical tool. Better yet, it can shape how students, faculty, and visitors engage with your college or university. It can determine visibility for events, support marketing campaigns, and influence how your most important audiences experience your entire campus culture.
But that ROI can be difficult to prove, especially when using homegrown systems that potentially place heavy burdens on your IT staff. Self-built systems can be difficult to maintain and lack accessibility. It’s why understanding the ROI of investing in a university event calendar is vital to reducing inefficiencies and demonstrating the full benefits of campus events calendars for leadership and stakeholders.
The True Costs of a Campus Events Calendar
Demonstrating the ROI of any investment first requires identifying the full cost structure. That, in turn, means dividing costs into direct and indirect categories to help understand your campus events calendar investment.
Direct costs tend to include:
- Licensing or subscription fees for the calendar software
- Integration costs, like connecting the calendar with your student system, website CMS, or single sign-on
- Ongoing costs for maintenance, updates, and support
Indirect costs may not be as obvious, potentially including:
- Staff time lost for other initiatives as your team tries to wrangle slow or convoluted event posting
- IT efforts that might need to be diverted to troubleshooting or patching the calendar
- Events lost or delayed because of manual workflows
Minimizing these costs, especially the indirect costs, is vital for institutions looking to maximize their campus calendar ROI.
How Much Does It Really Cost to Run a Campus Events Calendar?
When your institution uses a legacy or DIY system, hidden costs can quickly escalate. Every minute a staffer spends waiting on IT or reformatting content lowers the potential for positive ROI. Similarly, every event not posted or incorrectly listed is a missed engagement opportunity. As digital accessibility compliance becomes increasingly important, potential legal liabilities can further increase the cost.
By contrast, purpose-built calendar solutions can eliminate many of these indirect costs. By streamlining workflows and reducing reliance on specialized IT support, they can create a more straightforward cost equation while demonstrating to leadership the true value of a great university event calendar.
Modeling the Value and Payback of Campus Events Calendars
With costs mapped out clearly, the next step in the ROI equation is quantifying the value that the right calendar platform can bring.
The benefits of campus events calendars tend to manifest in two major buckets: efficiency gains and engagement growth. Together, these two areas can lead to a faster payback period, ensuring that the investment brings positive returns in a reasonable timeframe.
Efficiency Gains
The right campus calendar can significantly free up staff time across the university. Core users across campus can upload and post events more quickly, while IT staff can spend less time on maintenance or custom builds for every event.
In one case study, the Missouri University of Science and Technology reported a 75% reduction in event upload time after switching to a more modern calendar system, resulting in a 345% increase in the number of events uploaded.
Engagement Growth
Of course, faster and more efficient event posting only matters if follow-up is also in place. Implemented the right way, campus events calendars can become magnets for activity.
When the University of Louisville upgraded its event system, it experienced significant improvements in engagement. As the team increased the annual number of event listings by 160%, key events saw attendance increases of 200% and more. In total, the university was able to increase web traffic to its event postings by 648%.
Together, the efficiency and engagement benefits of campus events calendars shorten the payback cycle. Licensing and setup fees can be offset by reduced labor and higher participation, resulting in a more compelling ROI equation.
Proving ROI to Campus Leadership
Tracking cost savings and engagement gains of campus events calendars is only part of the equation. The next step is to create a persuasive business case for the investment and present it to campus leadership. The key in that step is shifting the perception of an events calendar from an operational tool to a strategic investment that will benefit the entire campus.
Start by tying your calendar success metrics to institutional priorities. Leadership tends to be focused on efficiency, student success, retention, and brand differentiation. Frame your arguments around these axes, as outlined below.
Cost Savings and Efficiency (IT and Staff Time)
Every hour your IT staff spends troubleshooting a legacy calendar system is an opportunity cost. In a 2024 survey, more than 70% of university IT professionals reported that their workloads were excessive, with 58% stating that they had experienced burnout in the past year. A modern calendar reduces that burden.
Similarly, event and marketing teams often waste time correcting formatting issues or struggling with manual event posting workflows. Other staff across the university may not even post an event when the process is perceived to be too difficult. Reducing these inefficiencies frees up resources for higher-impact work.
Engagement Growth (Traffic and Attendance)
Higher education leadership also tends to care about scale. Metrics such as page views, click-throughs, RSVPs, and, of course, actual event attendance can indicate momentum. For example, a university that boosts event listings and sees a 200% increase in traffic can directly attribute that success to its broader digital marketing performance.
You can also show how increased engagement supports other goals. For example, better event attendance means stronger student connection, more (and more positive) word-of-mouth, and better use of campus spaces.
Student Satisfaction and Campus Culture
A well-maintained, intuitive events calendar signals that your institution values student life and accessibility. This, in turn, contributes to student satisfaction and provides internal stakeholders with something tangible to support. In fact, the 2023 Student Persistence & Retention Survey found that 66% of transfer students said more visible events on campus would have influenced their decision to stay.
Student Retention
Showing leadership how a better calendar is part of the retention ecosystem can go a long way toward building buy-in. Sources like the Inside Higher Ed Student Voice Survey, which showed that nearly one-third of students spend zero hours per week on extracurriculars, can show how well-promoted events can make an impact. Similarly, research continues to show that active event engagement keeps students enrolled longer.
Beyond the Numbers: The Strategic Impact of Events Calendars
Cost savings and engagement metrics are important. But the broader value of an events calendar can also be felt in less tangible—though equally critical—ways. A well-run calendar serves as the digital heartbeat of campus life, showcasing the diversity of opportunities available while also signaling to students that their institution values community and engagement.
Organizationally, calendars can help create cohesion across departments. They prevent duplication and make it easier to collaborate, ensuring that the full spectrum of opportunities is available for all audiences.
For recruitment, meanwhile, a robust event presence can help prospective students imagine what their day-to-day experience could look like. It transforms the abstract concept of “campus life,” which can be difficult to convey on a campus tour or in a printed brochure, into something more concrete and relatable.
Finally, for retention, the effect is even clearer. Students who feel connected through events are more likely to:
- Build friendships
- Participate in clubs
- Develop a sense of belonging
Each of these factors strongly correlates with persistence and graduation.
Next Steps for Campus Leaders
As institutions weigh the value of investing in a modern university events calendar, it helps to frame the decision with a clear set of action steps:
- Cost: Document both direct expenses (like licensing, integrations, and support) and indirect costs (like IT time, staff rework, and missed opportunities).
- Value: Capture engagement metrics like event submissions, web traffic, and attendance growth alongside qualitative feedback from students and departments.
- Payback: Translate these outcomes into a simple payback model, including metrics like staff hours saved and revenue retained through student persistence or improved marketing performance.
Then, present this newly-built model to decision-makers. Focus less on technical features and more on alignment with institutional goals. Keep the conversation outcomes-driven and frame the calendar as a strategic digital asset rather than a tactical expense.
The right events calendar solution can have a significant, positive impact on your institution. By framing it as a strategic investment, it becomes easier to see clear ROI across your operations and the student experience. Request a demo to see how a modern events calendar delivers measurable ROI.