Move over, traditional higher-ed funding

By Jan Wondra

Historically, higher education has not been known for swiftness or innovation. When it changes at all, it moves deliberately, weighing the input from multiple departments and institutional constituencies before developing a careful approach.

Move over traditional educational support structures. Beyond Campus Innovations is here.

This innovative for-profit company rolled out without fanfare in fall of 2015 in Denver south and has steadily been building a client roster reaching well beyond the educational entity that birthed it.

“Our vision is to be the leader in educational-outsource services,” said Dale Buckholtz, Beyond Campus’s president and CEO. “Through precise technology application and leading educational delivery practices, we create operational effectiveness and efficiency.”

The organization Buckholtz leads has been granted licensing rights to CSU-Global technology through the CSU System Foundation. The structure is a separate legal entity from Colorado State University-Global Campus, the country’s first 100-percent online university.

All BCI stock is held by the CSU System Foundation

This new foundation exists for the sole purpose of holding all of the BCI stock. Under the terms of its incorporation, a percentage of BCI’s profit transfers each year to the CSU System Foundation.

Buckholtz says that the mission of BCI is to provide advanced services and products that facilitate educational excellence in all sectors for industry success.

“Today, we are providing services to both accredited and nonaccredited universities,” Buckholtz said. “We’re creating organizational training and college courses for nonprofit organizations, primary schools and for-profit businesses.”

BCI’s target audience is broader than higher education

Its revenue model, says Buckholtz, “is focused on outsource-provision needs of organizations seeking to provide education, including but not limited to schools, businesses and government agencies. It includes the ability to directly provide education for nonaccredited, nonuniversity workplace education.”

Although he declined to name specific entities, Buckholtz says BCI is currently providing managed service to multiple organizations, including international universities, nonprofit organizations and for-profit entities. He believes the benefit to Colorado is larger than the educational arena.

“As a company,” Buckholtz said, “BCI seeks to provide advanced technology and customized outsource services to businesses, government entities and education providers at cost-effective rates and high-service levels.”

Starting anything new—let alone something so revolutionary as what BCI represents—to an audience far beyond higher education is hard work. In June 2015, BCI filed a trademark as follows: “marketing and advertising; outsource service provider in the field of higher-education administration; business consultation in the field of education leadership development; enrolling students in the educational programs of others; tracking student performance for educational administration purposes; student services, namely career placement and career information services for graduating services provided online; consulting services in the field of marketing of educational training.”

Since rolling out in 2015, Buckholtz has found himself monitoring the balance between revenue and expenses, ensuring cost-control and an appropriate level of investment for the future. 

BCI has big plans for the future. Asked where he wanted BCI to be in five years, his response was unhesitating. 

“In five years, I’d like to see BCI fully embedded across all industries through the provisioning of educational services domestically as well as internationally,” Buckholtz said. “And with this future success, take the opportunity to re-invest in the broader Colorado market.”