Space Optimization, Fees, and Learner Scheduling
Space is one of the most under-analyzed resources in education.
In an era where so many schools and colleges believe in build it and they will come, we help institutions understand not only how their physical spaces are used but how well those uses align with their schedule, staffing, teaching pedagogies, and program goals.
Using research-informed benchmarks and straightforward metrics, we assess space use across the school day and week—classrooms, labs, specialist rooms, and shared spaces.
We then visualize areas of overuse, underuse, or inefficiency to support better decisions about scheduling, staffing, facilities planning, and long-term investment.
Facing rising costs and shifting enrollment, space optimization offers a practical and mission-aligned way to increase sustainability, and create effective learning environments.
Space Optimization
How we Prepare Institutions
Boost financial sustainability and learner outcomes by using space more strategically
Find the intersection between space utilization, schedule design, teaching pedagogy, and optimal learner conditions
Uncover areas of latent capacity or pressure points
Support and inform decisions around program growth, renovation, or repurposing
Improve scheduling flexibility and reduce room conflicts.
Outcomes and Results
Key Components
- Time Utilization: Measures how often each room is scheduled (ideal: 60–75% for classrooms)
- Seat Occupancy: Measures how full rooms are during use (ideal: 60–80%)
- Combined Utilization: A single measure of room productivity (50–74% is healthy for most schools)
- Space-Use Visualizations: Heatmaps and dashboards showing room use by hour, day, and department
- Room Typing and Alignment Audits: Matches room types with instructional mode and demand patterns
- Resource Utilization Index (RUI): Composite score linking time, faculty load, and schedule density to show whole-school efficiency
- Cost per Student Contact Hour (CPSCH): Helps identify rooms or models that may be low return-on-investment.
One of the last variables to take on a market orientation in schools and colleges is the setting and review of tuition pricing.
Gone should be the days where schools and colleges can simply say – ‘our fees (strategy) are set by being + or – 5% of our competitors and or by looking only at costs.
Incongruity between price and reputation can result in schools leaving money on the table or pricing out students and parents that do not perceive what the school offers to be value for money.
We review and benchmark tuition pricing to be a driver of institutional sustainability and growth.
Fee Setting
How We Prepare Institutions
- Fees set with reference to costs and plant but wider objectives and a complete assessment of market condition and impact.
- Build perceptions of ‘value for money,’ the attractiveness of various services that allows for increased fees leveraging
- Alignment of buyer sensitivity (elasticity) to your fee structure and options
- Enhanced competitive standing of fees and education/service offer against peers.
- Use pricing as a decisive strategy for enrolment, and retention/progression.
- Identify current and potential advantages you can claim on differentiation where less price sensitivity occurs.
- Pricing alignment with value proposition and a barometer to build value for money.
- An effective pricing strategy that connects with wider institutional strategy.
- Pricing strategy targeted to market segments (audiences) you want to attract.
Outcomes and Results
Key Components
For schools we offer a low cost 5 stage Fee Strategy Review Process.
This process allows schools to evaluate and benchmark fee levels and strategy from a market perspective, enhancing enrolment, retention, competitiveness, and reputation.
- Colleges across the world benefit from our renowned ‘University Fees Monitors’.
A wise educator once said that “Time is the currency of education.” The question is: are you spending it wisely?
We optimize the most precious resource of education institutions – time.
Schedule design is one of the most important yet undervalued assets of any educational institution.
It silently shapes every aspect of school life – from student learning to teacher effectiveness, from resource utilization to community well-being.
Yet despite its fundamental importance, many schools continue to operate with legacy schedules that may no longer serve their evolving programmatic and pedagogical needs.
Learner Scheduling
How We Prepare Institutions
We create schedules that serve your mission, pedagogy, enhance learner outcomes and institutional reputation.
Schedule innovation leads directly to enhanced student outcomes, the single most important driver of school success and reputation.
Schedule excellence is not just about time slots and periods – it is about creating the conditions where learning thrives, teachers excel, and schools fulfil their mission.
We transform your schedule from a constraint into a catalyst for learner and institutional success.
Outcomes and Results
Key Components
We apply schedule design to build alignment with what we now know about optimal learning, enhance learner outcomes, and provide alignment with your school’s mission and strategic goals.
The Schedule Readiness Assessment is an evaluation instrument that incorporates a robust and practical process to measure and build schedule effectiveness.
This comprehensive tool helps school leaders:
- Past Planning, intelligence, and accreditation reports – held and available documentation and data.
- Demand – futures education analysis
- Supply- competitive analysis
- Analysis and alignment of desired possible changes for parent/students/staff/alumni
- Stakeholder interviews, focus groups, online surveys.