Higher Ed Hot Takes

Performance is non-negotiable

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Episode Summary

In this episode of Higher Ed Hot Takes, Joel Goodman tackles the mounting pressures facing universities worldwide: declining enrollment, rising inflation, government hostility, and the resulting wave of job losses. Drawing from personal experience and industry data, Joel reveals how seemingly small decisions-especially around website performance-can have massive financial consequences for institutions.

Key Topics Covered
  • The global higher ed crisis: job cuts, closures, and financial strain
  • Personal reflection on surviving staff redundancies in higher ed
  • How ego and poor spending decisions (like unnecessary tech upgrades and cosmetic projects) undermine student and staff needs
  • The overlooked importance of website performance in university marketing and recruitment
  • Bravery Media’s 2025 SpeedyU benchmarking data: alarming stats on slow higher ed websites across the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand
  • The real-world cost: Google research shows 53% of mobile users leave if a site takes over 3 seconds to load-costing institutions millions in lost tuition and donations
  • Common website performance killers:
    • Heavy homepage videos and improper video hosting
    • Excessive tracking pixels (e.g., Facebook) that slow down sites and hurt conversions
    • Outdated codebases (Bootstrap, jQuery, old CMS platforms)
    • Why performance is non-negotiable for web marketing and enrollment success
    • Actionable advice for universities:
      • Remove or properly optimize large videos
      • Minimize third-party trackers and pixels
      • Modernize code and CMS platforms
      • Leverage in-house developers for low-cost, high-impact fixes
      • Bravery Media’s ongoing speed and accessibility testing (SpeedyU.com) and offers for deeper audits or custom checklists
        • Resources Mentioned
        • Bravery Media’s SpeedyU benchmarking: speedyu.com
        • Google mobile site speed study
          • Calls to Action
          • Contact Joel Goodman or Bravery Media for a custom website performance audit or actionable checklist for your institution’s dev team.
          • Visit SpeedyU.com to see how your institution’s website ranks.
            • Connect with Joel

            Find me on LinkedIn or Bluesky.

            Thanks for listening to Higher Ed Hot Takes—the counterculture higher ed marketing podcast.

            For more honest takes on higher ed digital strategy, visit bravery.co.

            Chapters

            00:00 Introduction and Context

            00:18 The Financial Strain on Higher Education
            00:52 Misguided Spending Decisions
            01:26 The Impact of Slow Websites
            02:02 The Cost of Poor Website Performance
            04:35 Common Website Issues and Fixes
            06:15 Modernizing Your Website
            06:54 Conclusion and Call to Action

            ...more
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            Higher Ed Hot TakesBy Joel G Goodman