Higher Education

Higher Education

Better university decisions start with faster, defensible answers.
Higher Education | Pilbara Group
Pilbara Insights

Stop waiting weeks for answers your CFO needed yesterday

Most financial analysis in higher education is done ad hoc, one program at a time, one request at a time,each one taking days of data wrangling. Pilbara models the entire institution so you can assess every program simultaneously, not one at a time.

Time to assess margin across all academic programs
Spreadsheet approach
2–4 weeks
Pilbara Insights
Minutes

Every program, simultaneously

See the true revenue, cost, and margin for every program and course across your institution — including which programs are cross-subsidising others and by how much. The whole picture, not a slice of it.

Reports in minutes, not weeks

Your model is pre-built and always ready for analysis. When the CFO needs the financial performance of a program or the Dean needs a workload breakdown, the answer is already there — not a project request that takes two analysts a fortnight.

Analysis, not data entry

High-performing finance teams spend their time interpreting data, not gathering it. We handle ingestion, cleansing, and modelling across financial, HR, timetable, and student data — so your team can focus on decisions.

15+ Universities across Australia, US & Canada
100% Causal ABC models — not estimates or proxies
4 wks Typical time to first model delivery

Sector cost per EFTSL — your institution vs. peers
Sector median100%
Top quartile78%
Your institution 89%
Bottom quartile118%
Your position
Sector peers
Illustrative data
Pilbara Benchmarks

Know where you stand before you make a move

Pilbara Benchmarks gives you access to sector-wide cost, revenue amd workload data drawn from real ABC models across Australian higher education.

See how your programs, cost structures, and margins compare to peers — and identify where you're an outlier before it becomes a budget problem.

  • Compare cost per EFTSL across disciplines and institution types
  • Identify which programs are outliers and why
  • Build a credible external reference point for budget conversations
Explore benchmarks for free →

Pilbara Intelligence

Ask any question. Get an answer in seconds.

Pilbara Intelligence is an AI decision layer built directly on top of your institution's ABC model. Finance leaders, Deans, and planning managers can ask plain-language questions and get instant, model-grounded answers — without waiting for a report or an analyst.

Natural language queries

Ask about any program, course, or scenario in plain English and get a grounded answer — not a pivot table request.

Grounded in your data

Every answer derives from your causal ABC model — not a generic AI guess. Traceable, explainable, auditable.

Regular Updates

As your model updates with new data, so do the answers. No stale reports, no version confusion.

Pilbara Intelligence
Which Academic Programs have the highest margins?
The Diploma of Health Sciences (Domestic) program has the highest net margin at $16.4 million,followed by the Bachelor of Medicine at $14.5 million and Masters of Medicine at $8.7 million...
Answer generated in 31 seconds
What would happen to our surplus if domestic enrolments in Engineering fell 10%?
A 10% fall in domestic Engineering enrolments would reduce the university's surplus by $114,687 (0.14%) from $83.58 million to $83.47 million. I can model the impact of a similar drop in international students — if useful.
Answer generated in 67 seconds

Our Clients Use Activity-Based Models to Make Smart Financial Decisions

Request a Demo

See how fast your institution could be moving. Request a demo and we’ll show you exactly how Pilbara Insights works with your data — so you can walk away knowing what’s possible before you commit to anything.

Technology powered by Microsoft, Snowflake, and Pilbara