Ask any higher education IT leader where their time goes, and the answer is rarely strategic initiatives. More often, it’s spent resolving access issues: password resets, account lockouts, and “I can’t log in” tickets.
Password resets and access issues dominate help desk queues in higher education. Industry research consistently shows that 20%10 to 30%11 of help desk calls involve password resets. At a mid-sized university with thousands of users, this translates into significant annual cost—before accounting for lost productivity or user frustration.
Fragmented environments amplify the problem. Users manage multiple credentials across systems, and an already stretched help desk staff must troubleshoot across different identity stores and policies. What should be a two-minute fix often becomes a fifteen-minute investigation. When skilled professionals spend hours each week resolving repetitive identity issues, the opportunity cost is enormous.
The 2024 EDUCAUSE IT Leadership Workforce Report underscores why this matters. Based on a survey of 400 higher education and IT leaders, 37% were facing staffing issues,12 with the majority of those saying they were at risk for burnout and moving on.13 This burden is amplified by undocumented processes and tribal knowledge. Identity workflows that evolved over decades often live only in the minds of long-serving staff. When those individuals leave, institutions risk losing critical operational understanding.
The path to a lower ticket volume isn’t hiring more staff—it’s simplifying identity. When users have a single, consistent login experience and the ability to handle routine tasks through self-service, demand on the help desk drops significantly.
Identity automation doesn’t just save time. It allows IT teams to focus on higher-value work that supports institutional goals. Solutions like RapidIdentity reduce help desk volume by simplifying authentication, enabling self-service, and automating the identity workflows that generate the most tickets—complementing Jamf’s focus on reducing friction for both IT teams and end users.
Discover how identity automation can lower ticket volume and free IT teams for higher-value work. Schedule a demo.
This is the 3rd in a series of blog posts about Identity and Access Management in Higher Education. In our next post, learn how login friction is enrollment friction – and how identity impacts student retention. Miss the first 2 posts in the series? Check out the links below!
Blog Post 1: The Hidden Costs of Fragmented Identity Systems in Higher Education
Blog Post 2: Invisible Security Gaps: How Fragmented IAM Increases Breach and Compliance Risk
10 SupportSoft, Inc., "SupportSoft IT Headache Index," March 2007. Analysis of approximately 2 million call logs from 20 large global companies. Reported in: InfoWorld, "Forgotten passwords top help-desk calls," March 6, 2007, https://www.infoworld.com/article/2315427/forgotten-passwords-top-help-desk-calls.html
11 Jenny Rains, "Password-Reset Practices in Support," HDI Research Corner, Help Desk Institute, May 23, 2012. Survey of 339 support center professionals. https://www.thinkhdi.com/library/supportworld/2011/password-reset-practices.aspx
12 EDUCAUSE. "The IT Leadership Workforce in Higher Education, 2024." March 2024. https://library.educause.edu/resources/2024/3/the-it-leadership-workforce-in-higher-education-2024
13 Ibid.
Bryan Christ is an IT professional with almost three decades of industry experience. He has worked for a number of high-profile companies including Compaq, Hewlett-Packard and MediaFire. After serving two years in a fractional CIO role in the Greater Houston area, Bryan shifted into the identity and access management (IAM) arena and has spent the last several years focused on Higher Education.