Public University in Ohio Reduces Microsoft EA Spend with Academic Licensing Strategy
Industry: Education
Location: Ohio, USA
Organization Size: Large public university (30,000+ students, 5,000+ staff)
Background & Challenges
A large public university in Ohio was facing escalating costs in its Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (EA). Despite being an academic institution eligible for education pricing, the university had been deploying mostly commercial Microsoft 365 E5 licenses for faculty and staff.
This overreliance on commercial E5 SKUs meant the university was paying enterprise rates for software that could have been obtained under cheaper academic plans. Additionally, the university was underutilizing academic entitlements such as free student licenses (Microsoft’s Student Use Benefit) and other education discounts available to them.
The licensing approach had grown ad hoc over time, with some departments purchasing licenses. This decentralization led to compliance headaches and missed opportunities for volume discounts.
The result was a bloated EA renewal quote that strained the university’s IT budget.
Director of Procurement: “We always assumed Microsoft had given us the best pricing. It was eye-opening when we discovered how much we were overspending by not using academic licensing. Our budgets were already tight, so seeing that we had enterprise E5 licenses where academic A5 equivalents existed was a shock.”
The Assistant VP of IT added that feature-wise, most users didn’t even need the full power of E5. Many advanced features were underutilized, meaning the university was paying for functionality it wasn’t using. Yet, without expert guidance, they hadn’t pivoted to the education-specific license programs.
The challenge was clear: reduce the EA spend by aligning licensing with the university’s true needs and status as an educational institution, all without disrupting faculty or student access to Microsoft services.
Strategy & Solution
Redress Compliance was engaged in performing a thorough licensing review and contract analysis.
The team’s approach was two-pronged: optimize the license mix to leverage academic pricing and centralize license management to improve compliance and efficiency.
- Audit and Baseline: Redress gathered data on the current EA, inventorying all Microsoft licenses. They identified how many Microsoft 365 E5 subscriptions were allocated to users, and what those users required. The findings confirmed significant misalignment; many staff members had E5 by default, even though many did not use E5-only features (like advanced security analytics). At the same time, the university was entitled to thousands of free or low-cost student licenses that were not being fully utilized. For example, if faculty are licensed for certain products under Microsoft’s academic program, students can often receive access at no additional cost (a benefit the university had not fully activated).
- Academic SKU Replacement: Redress Compliance recommended a shift from commercial SKUs to academic equivalents. This meant replacing Microsoft 365 E5 licenses with Microsoft 365 A5 (Education) licenses for faculty and staff wherever possible. The A5 plan provides the same functionality as E5 but at a fraction of the cost for qualified academic institutions. Similarly, many users who didn’t need the full A5 feature set were moved to Microsoft 365 A3 (Education) licenses or even the free A1 licenses for basic needs, further driving down costs. These changes took advantage of academic pricing tiers and ensured the school was paying education rates (often 80 %+ lower than commercial pricing for comparable services). In one example, a staff member with a commercial E5 license (list price around $57 per user/month) could be covered under an A5 faculty license (roughly $7 per user/month under academic pricing) – a drastic reduction in unit cost with no loss of productivity tools.
- Centralized Licensing Program: The university’s licensing was consolidated under a single Enrollment for Education Solutions (EES) agreement – essentially an academic EA. Previously, different colleges and departments had procured licenses in silos, sometimes even buying commercial Office 365 subscriptions externally. Redress helped centralize this into one coordinated program through the procurement office. This centralization ensured consistent application of academic discounts and made license management easier. It also improved compliance tracking since all Microsoft use would be accounted for in one system.
- EA Term Adjustments: Redress revisited the EA terms in negotiating the new agreement. They adjusted the quantity of licenses to better match actual faculty/staff counts (eliminating a surplus of unused licenses that had been “sitting on the shelf”). They also structured the contract to incorporate the Student Use Benefit – meaning, as long as the university licenses all faculty for Microsoft 365, all of its students can use Office 365 for free on their devices. This was a huge win: previously, the university had been considering purchasing additional licenses for students or computer labs that were available at no extra cost through this benefit. By formalizing these entitlements, the university ensured it wouldn’t inadvertently pay for something it could get free.
- Stakeholder Training: Redress guided the university’s IT and procurement teams on Microsoft’s academic licensing programs as a soft benefit. This included training on periodically reviewing license assignments and rightsizing as staff or student populations change. Establishing this governance helps sustain the cost savings year over year.
Results & Impact
By the end of the engagement, the public university dramatically lowered its Microsoft EA spending without reducing user service quality.
Key outcomes included:
- Immediate Cost Savings: The total contract value for the Microsoft EA renewal dropped significantly. The university achieved a roughly 25% reduction in annual Microsoft licensing costs compared to the previous term. This meant saving hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in real dollars. The price difference between commercial and academic license SKUs and eliminating unnecessary E5 subscriptions largely drove these savings. As an added benefit, the university avoided a projected budget overrun for IT, freeing up funds that could be reallocated to other campus technology initiatives.
- Optimized License Usage: Every Microsoft 365 license aligns with a real need. Faculty and staff who require advanced features have them through A5 licenses, while more basic users aren’t over-provisioned. Compliance improved as well; with centralized tracking, the university can ensure it uses licenses within the terms of the agreement and can more easily report usage to Microsoft. There’s also less risk of audit issues, since they aren’t mixing license types or purchasing outside the centralized agreement.
- Academic Benefits Leveraged: The university unlocked the full value of its status as an educational institution. All eligible students were granted access to Office 365 at no cost to the school via the Student Use Benefit, greatly expanding the software’s reach on campus while costing the university nothing extra. This saves money and supports student success by providing them with the tools they need. The school also gained access to certain Azure credits and training offers Microsoft provides to edu customers, which had been overlooked before.
- Cultural Change in Procurement: The project changed how the university approaches software procurement. With clearer insight into licensing options, the procurement department now proactively asks if an academic SKU or discount applies. The internal IT asset management process was updated to regularly review license allocation, ensuring that they don’t slip back into overbuying commercial licenses.
Assistant VP of IT: “Working with Redress Compliance was a turning point. We went from overspending on fancy licenses we weren’t fully using to actually right-sizing our environment. The best part is that faculty and students noticed zero difference in their day-to-day tools – except maybe that more students now have access to Office 365. It feels like we finally aligned our licensing with our mission as a university.”
This case study highlights how an educational institution can save significantly by leveraging the licensing programs designed for its sector.
Ohio University achieved both cost efficiency and operational clarity by replacing expensive commercial licenses with academic equivalents and cleaning up how licenses are managed. The Director of Procurement said best: “Redress helped us find money on the table that we didn’t know we were leaving. In the public education space, every dollar counts – and now those dollars are going back into our classrooms and research instead of software overspend.”
