Everyone on your campus needs information, and if your institution is like most schools, you have plenty of it to share. But which types of data warehousing and business intelligence systems you choose, and how accessible, usable, and meaningful those tools make all of that information, remain the big questions for many technologists and administrators. Fortunately, there are always those brave pioneers, willing to move forward into uncharted territory. Right now, say those watching DW and BI rollouts in higher ed, a handful of institutions have truly cutting-edge programs in place or in process. More often, though, colleges and universities are in the early stages of implementing such projects. Yet, the importance of making good choices for your academic analytics solution can hardly be overstated. With sophisticated financial and ERP systems in place at most schools, this is one of IT's next frontiers. The choices you make now will do much to enhance your competitive edge down the road, allowing you to accurately gauge the success of recruitment efforts, pinpoint sources of research dollars, meet compliance regulations, report to outside agencies on exactly where dollars are going, and much more. With that in mind, the author takes a look at three higher ed institutions whose administrators have made very different choices in approaches to today's data warehousing and business intelligence challenges.