Meadow Research · May 2026 · 147 practitioners surveyed

AI is reshaping nearly every corner of higher education, except one. The office managing tuition billing, payment processing, and thousands of weekly student inquiries has been slow to act. Meadow's survey of 147 student accounts professionals reveals what's actually happening, what's getting in the way, and what it takes to close the gap.

TL;DR — 5 things to know

→ Shadow AI is the default. Staff are using AI—76% do so individually—but only 14% have departmentally sanctioned tools. Most use is ungoverned and invisible to leadership.

→ FERPA anxiety is real, but shouldn't be a stop-sign. 78% cite privacy as their top concern. Early adopters are treating it as a design constraint, not a reason to wait.

→ Email drafting is the gateway. 46% of respondents are actively using or piloting AI to draft responses to student inquiries—and those who do report faster, more consistent answers.

→ Leadership is largely absent. 63% feel no pressure from senior leaders to adopt AI, and 44% say it's never discussed in team meetings. Adoption is happening despite leadership, not because of it.

→ The unlock is cultural, not financial. The institutions making the most progress haven't spent more money—they've created a culture where it's safe to experiment and share what works.

Shadow AI is the new normal, and it's risky

Three-quarters of student accounts professionals are using AI on their own by drafting emails, looking up policy, summarizing guidance, but only 14% have access to tools their department has actually approved. The result is a workforce of capable, motivated AI users operating without guardrails, shared standards, or institutional visibility. The knowledge they're building disappears when they leave. The FERPA exposure they may be creating is largely invisible to leadership.

This is not a workforce that's resistant to change. Fifty-three percent of respondents use AI personally at least weekly. The talent and familiarity are already there. The challenge is creating the conditions—clear guidance, approved tools, permission to experiment—that let staff bring their personal AI fluency into compliant professional practice.

The barriers stack—and they start at the top

The challenges holding student accounts back don't operate at a single level. Staff run into FERPA anxiety and bandwidth constraints. Institutions fail to provide policy or approved tools. Leadership hasn't engaged. Each layer reinforces the others.

• 78% cite privacy/FERPA as their top concern
• 57% cite unclear guidance on what's permitted with student data
• 46% have no approved tools or institutional guidance at all
• 63% report no leadership pressure to adopt or plan for AI

Notably, only one respondent across the entire survey works in a department with a student accounts-specific AI policy. Most professionals are navigating these questions entirely alone.

"Introducing new tools without clear guidance creates confusion and erodes trust. We need to empower AI users with confidence by setting expectations upfront."— Myles Lawhorn, Interim AVP, Community College of Philadelphia

What's actually working

The pattern is consistent: AI earns its keep by eliminating the most tedious, high-volume, repetitive work.

• Drafting student inquiry responses is the clear leader, with 46% actively using or piloting AI here. One practitioner cut drafting time from 8 minutes per email to under 2.
• Interpreting federal and state guidance—tax form deadlines, state regulations, federal policy—is next, with 22% using or piloting.
• Outbound reminders and proactive outreach has only 12% active use today, but 40% say they're interested and not yet trying. It may be the highest near-term opportunity.

The common thread: AI handles the transactional so staff can invest in the relational.

The tool reality

ChatGPT is the dominant tool, used by 62% of respondents in the past three months, but it wasn't built for FERPA-sensitive environments. Many institutions haven't negotiated a data processing addendum with OpenAI, meaning student data entered into consumer-facing ChatGPT may not be protected under institutional policy. The practical fix: direct staff toward enterprise-licensed alternatives, or audit what you've already paid for. Most ERPs, CRMs, and ticketing platforms now have AI capabilities built in.

"Look at what vendor partners you already have licenses with. ServiceNow, Salesforce, Slate, Workday—they all have AI embedded now. You may already have more than you think."— Michael Latsko, CHRO, Arizona State University

Seven recommendations for student accounts leaders

1. Find your internal spark. Ask your team: "What's the most interesting use of AI you've seen or tried lately?" The people who lean forward are your champions.
2. Reframe the ask. Instead of "what's your boring work?" try "if we had new resources starting Thursday, what would you hand off to them?" The same ideas surface, without the threat.
3. Start with the lowest-risk, highest-volume use case. For most offices, that's drafting inquiry responses. Output is always reviewed before it reaches a student, and the time savings are immediate.
4. Get the governance question answered, even imperfectly. Push for a working answer to a specific question: "Can I use [this tool] to draft [this type of communication] if I review all output first?"
5. Use what you've already paid for. Inventory your current vendor relationships before signing anything new.
6. Build a learning culture. Document what you try. Share informally. Use NACUBO and peer networks to learn from what others are doing.
7. Measure and communicate early wins. You don't need a 12-month ROI analysis. "Our average response time is down 30% since March" is both a budget case and a cultural case.

Download the full report

For the complete findings—including in-depth interviews with leaders at Arizona State University, Community College of Philadelphia, and Richard Bland College, plus a forward-looking framework for the AI-powered Student Accounts office—download the full report here.