A growing chorus of university leaders and auditors say higher education lacks systems thinking: fragmented processes, isolated data, and overlapping roles are producing compliance breakdowns, audit findings and mounting operational risk. The analysis points to persistent failures in research finance, grant management, accreditation and HR—areas where misaligned workflows and patchwork solutions create expensive workarounds and opaque controls. The absence of integrated governance and enterprise‑level planning has drawn scrutiny from the Government Accountability Office and contributed to declining public trust, stakeholders say—prompting calls for cross‑functional redesign rather than narrow tactical fixes.